More Adventures on Mykonos

Continuing from yesterday's entry about our port of call at Mykonos Town, on the Thomson Majesty's Hellenic Classics cruise.

We take our leave of Zorbas Bar and head back up into the town's narrow streets via a different route. Miss Franny is crossing a storm drain - after rain, water must come gushing down from the mountains, requiring this wide channel to avoid flooding the streets.

Smile... David and I find a traffic mirror, placed to help drivers see if it is safe to pull out into the limited road space. We stand in front of it, grinning like idiots and taking several photos until we get one that shows us to best advantage...

I took three photos of this too before the flag almost completely unfurled and I was happy with the result. Huge orb in the sky too - either someone was watching over us or a speck of dust caught the sun...

And then we came across a shop selling musical instruments so of course I had to go in! I fell into a conversation with the owner and once he knew I played, he seemed very happy to talk between customers. He made some of the Greek instruments hanging amongst the guitars. Happy chance meeting!

By now we are starting to climb to the outskirts of the town but I was taken by this arched entrance to a property with the bougainvillea tree framing the entire building. Beautiful.

Someone was waiting for a taxi there so I had to wait a few moments before getting the previous photo, by which time the others had climbed a little higher and found this small modern amphitheatre.

From the amphitheatre we could look over the rooftops and see the sea on the horizon. Thomson Majesty can be seen on the right of the photo.

Miss Franny in what could easily have been the narrowest street we found!

A poster on the wall provides a splash of colour contrasting with the blues of the paintwork.

We are back down to Little Venice and now about to head back towards the harbour area. You have to weave your way through the cafe/bar tables in this area! In fact if you could class this as a street then this is the narrowest street!

And just look at this gorgeous display of postcards and artworks, with blue and the occasional orange dominating. A lovely sight to come across. The ladies were attracted to fridge magnets...

Desirable detatched house, quiet area, garden with plenty of potential...

We come to the harbour where a tender boat sits waiting to take people back to the ship. They leave roughly every twenty minutes to and from the ship. Some of the ship's crew have set up a water station there to cool you down before getting onto the tender boat.

We carry on past it though as we are not quite ready to go back yet! The local boats add colour to the bay and the houses cling to the hillside with white blue and maroon.

On the opposite side of the bay are boats belonging to richer people!

A pelican famously visits the beach and was featured in the film Shirley Valentine but he has yet to make himself known to us... The pigeon was obviously its stand-in...

"Look at that!" says David in astonishment. "It's wine o'clock!". And so it is. We favour the Alegro Restaurant with our custom and take seats, ordering a bottle of wine.

Cheers! There is something immensely relaxing about sitting in the open air, watching people passing by and getting quietly bladdered - er... I mean - having a quiet sophisticated tipple at one's leisure...

Complimentary Greek salad of feta cheese, tomatoes and herbs in oil and served on bread. Jeannie and I shared it and it was delicious.

Miss Jeannie savours the last bit of salad before consuming it daintily. I just gobbled mine... I was busily shading in the last touches to my sketch of Little Venice that I started at Zorbas Bar.

One of the hardest things to do is to put your pencil away before you ruin it!

I asked one waiter how to say "thanks" in Greek and he said "efcharisto", speaking it a syllable at a time as David struggled to get it right. I suggested he should have slapped David's face with each syllable which got a huge burst of laughter from several of the waiters around. I've since seen it written "efharisto" and "eyharisto" but the pronunciation was definitely "eff-ka-risto" with the emphasis on the short "ka".

Then we head back to the tender boat for the short hop back to the ship. It's already quite full and David and I are sitting either side of the boatman.

"This is moving about more than the Majesty does!" thinks Fran. But it's not moving that much really and we are soon back at the ship's side with strong arms helping people from the boat to the gangway.

The skipper holds the boat in place against the gangway as we all get off.

Hellenic Classics Index