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| Mykonos Town street at night |
| Photo © Barb & Ron Kroll |
The nightlife in Mykonos Town (also called Chora) is so vibrant that Mykonos is called the Ibiza of the Aegean. But to truly appreciate this Cyclades island, located 150 kilometers east of Athens, you must travel beyond the clubs and restaurants of the island's capital.
Celestyal Cruises' tour of the Mykonian Countryside and Chora made it easy for us to discover the highlights of this 14-kilometer-long, 10-kilometer-wide island.
According to our guide Georgia, the population of Mykonos swells from 11,000 to 40,000 with the hotel, restaurant, shop and bar workers who support the tourist industry that burgeoned after Jackie Onassis and celebrities such as Paul Newman and Brigitte Bardot made it a fashionable destination.
Beautiful beaches
The hippies followed, drawn by the party beaches, such as Paradise and Super Paradise. Since then, visitors have discovered that the 89-kilometer-long Mykonos coast has a beach for every interest.
Mykonos Town beach is the most accessible to passengers who arrive in Chora by cruise ship or ferry. Malaliamos, Agios Stefanos and Platys Gialos are family-friendly beaches.
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| Kalafatis beach |
| Photo © Barb & Ron Kroll |
From Ornos beach, you can rent boats to explore neighboring islands. Agios Ioannis beach was one of the film settings for the movie Shirley Valentine. Beautiful Kalafatis beach, located on the south coast, is popular for windsurfing, diving and watersports.
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| Yiorgos Syrianos with wheel of Mykonos Farmers' cheese |
| Photo © Barb & Ron Kroll |
Delicious cheese and yogurt
Our tour bus stopped at Mykonos Farmers in Agios Lazaros. One of the owners of the family-run dairy, Yiorgos Syrianos, explained how his company makes traditional Mykonian yogurt and cheeses without chemicals.
"We make cheese the old-style way using my grandmother's recipes," he said. He showed us packages of creamy, low-salt feta—great in salads—and 100% sheep milk gruyere, which takes eight months to mature.
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| Kopanisti cheese and tomatoes on bread |
| Photo © Barb & Ron Kroll |
We sampled his thick, tasty yogurt. "It is made from cow's milk and nothing else," explained Yiorgos. "We use enzymes rather than chemical cultures, so it takes five days to make it."
Our favorite Mykonos Farmers' cheese is kopanisti. The preservative-free cheese is white, but it tastes like blue cheese. Yiorgos served us the delicious kopanisti on bread slices topped with cherry tomatoes.
Ano Mera
As we drove through the countryside, we noticed that the whitewashed houses have flat roofs. "Mykonos receives very little rain, so people use their roofs as cisterns to collect water. It's not potable, so we drink bottled water," explained Georgia.
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| Panagia Tourliani Monastery church in Ano Mera |
| Photo © Barb & Ron Kroll |
"The houses also have rounded corners because the island has very strong meltemi winds," she said. "When the wind blows from the north, Mykonos weather is cold. When it doesn't blow, the temperature is very hot!"
In Ano Mera, the second-largest village on Mykonos, we viewed the white Monastery of Panagia Tourliani, founded in 1542 by monks from the neighboring island of Paros. "The monks were rich, so they donated land for schools and orphanages," said Georgia. "It is no longer an active monastery."
"Pirates attacked the monastery in the 17th century and destroyed the church. It was reconstructed in 1767 with marble imported from Tinos, the closest island to Mykonos." Inside the church, we viewed wooden carvings, painted frescoes and icons covered with precious metals, dating back to the 15th century.
"Do you know why Mykonos has more than 400 churches?" asked Georgia. "In the past, sailors and their families prayed for protection from disasters at sea."
Little Venice
We returned to Mykonos Town for a walking tour along its narrow streets. Its dazzling whitewashed buildings resemble a bag of sugar cubes spilled in a crescent-shape around the bay.
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| Little Venice in Mykonos Town |
| Photo © Barb & Ron Kroll |
In the Little Venice area, red and blue wooden balconies jut out over the Aegean Sea from homes built by ship-owners in the 18th century. "The Venetians stayed here for two centuries and influenced our foods and language," explained Georgia.
"Pirates hid their boats in the bay. Some of the Little Venice residents cooperated with pirates by buying their loot and selling it in Athens and Istanbul. They became very rich."
Dominating Little Venice is a row of cylindrical thatched-roof Kato Mili (Lower Windmills). The three-storey-high windmills took advantage of the strong north winds to grind grains to make rusks for sailors.
They are no longer active. Some Mykonos windmills now house tourist apartments.
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| Windmills in Little Venice |
| Photo © Barb & Ron Kroll |
Celestyal Crystal ran regular shuttle buses from the ship until 6 am so that passengers could sample Mykonos's vibrant nightlife. When we returned to the town just before midnight, we joined a cosmopolitan crowd of people strolling the illuminated streets to shop, eat, drink and dance.
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| Dining in outdoor restaurant on Mykonos waterfront |
| Photo © Barb & Ron Kroll |
It's easy to get lost in Little Venice. The labyrinthine alleyways were originally designed to confuse invaders. White paint surrounds their stone surfaces.
Lights make the streets and dazzling white buildings brighter than during the day. Art galleries, Swarovski, Cartier and designer clothing boutiques leave their doors open to entice shoppers to enter.
Waterfront restaurants, clubs, bars and tavernas now occupy the sea captain's homes. Dining by candlelight at outdoor tables overlooking the town's white buildings and lights reflected in the Aegean Sea is a memorable way to end a tour to Mykonos.
TRAVEL INFORMATION
For a free cruise brochure and more shore excursion information visit www.celestyalcruises.com or call 1-877-337-4665 toll free.
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