Life's Journey

We were at sea the morning of Day 7 and arrive at the Greek island of Mykonos at 1:00pm. This was a free day for us. I did research on the island and found that the main attractions are all within walking distance. Yahira (our concierge) escorted us off the ship and onto the first shuttle bus taking people into town. This was a huge perk today. Since we docked later in the day everyone was up and about and wanted off the ship at the same time. It was a little mad house. They actually closed the gangways for a while to let people off in chunks instead of all at once. Anyway, we are lucky to have Yahira as an amazing perk with our suite.

The shuttle took us to the center of town and we were free to explore. Roy and I decided to get a lay of the land and seek out a few must see places on the island. First we went to the Church of Paraportiani. It's located in a quite part of Mykonos and is worth a visit. It now is a combination of 5 church structures together overlooking the sea. Its exactly what you would expect on a greek island. All white with a bell and cross at the top of the blue dome. It was very pretty. Next we went to Little Venice. This was my favorite part and Roy's least favorite. It’s a labyrinth of narrow walkways with little shops and artist studios on both sides. The higher stories of the building were condos or apartments with a variety of bright colored balconies and flowers hanging down. The island looked just as I expected but it was a little dirty. That was disappointing but fairly easy to look past. We walked all through little Venice and ended up at the windmills. This is really cool. There are 6 old windmill structures standing but are now non-functional. Its on top of a hill so it provides beautiful views of the sea and the island. We did a little more walking and shopping. I stumbled upon a local artist that makes and paints ceramics. She does beautiful work so I went in to take a look around. She was a very nice lady (as were all the locals btw) and we talked about many of her pieces. We ended up purchasing a few to bring home. We have found many wonderful treasures on this trip that are so meaningful. Every time I use the dish I purchased here I will think of the artist and our conversations. We strolled back toward the shore to find a restaurant to enjoy some authentic greek food before leaving. We found a perfect spot right on the water at the main drag which provided some great people watching ;). We enjoyed greek beer and gyros - the perfect ending to another beautiful day in the Mediterranean.

Day 8 was our last full day at sea. The timing was perfect because I was long overdue for a break. I've been pushing myself extremely hard to do all these things. It's all catching up to me. I'm sore and exhausted. Sleep on the ship is ok - it gets noisy so if I wake up for some reason it can be challenging to get back to sleep. But last night I could've slept through pirates invading our ship or something crazy like that! Lol!

Our day at sea was pretty leisurely. We hit some golf balls - this is pretty cool - there is a net and target set up on the top deck so you can hit some balls. I treated myself to a shellac manicure - supposedly it won't chip for 14 days (we'll see!). (note: this was a big fat failure, it started chipping and peeling within 3 days - I had them give me a refund) It was nice just to be pampered a little We went to another art auction just to check it out. It's fun because it's something I would never do at home and I really enjoy seeing the art and learning more about each piece. They have some beautiful pieces on board. We decided to have BBQ by the pool for lunch today. I enjoyed a pina colada with mine (cuz it's not really a vacation until you’ve had a pina colada - der!). We sat on the top deck and people watched for a while before deciding to play a little scrabble. It was a nice day. Then we ended the day with a yummy dinner at the french restaurant and a show at the theatre. The show was pretty impressive - it was two older mexican gentlemen that played a variety of instruments from all over the world. They had flutes, guitars, and drums of all shapes and sizes. I was surprised to find how much I enjoyed it… some of these instruments had to be super difficult to play and the music was beautiful.

I combined these two days for one post because they were both pretty laid back. Mykonos was a ton of walking but at least it was a shorter day. And the day at sea was a good recouperate and relax day. Just what I needed.

Hugs and Smiles,

Sarah