Mykonos (Day 10) — Harmon Family

Mykonos offers a fun and incongruous mixture: part historic sea town - and part fashionable party island. We arrived in Mykonos and met up with Gigi and Papa Doc (Jamie’s parents).

If your goals for a beach are top notch restaurants, people watching, and crazy parties that begin at midnight, then Mykonos is for you! But not entirely for us, although we really loved the food. We were a bit surprised by the omnipresent party feeling; even the grocery store in Mykonos has dance music and Dolce and Gabbana videos on huge flat screens. We were mostly coming because Jamie liked walking around the historic town on a trip with his parents in 1982.

The kids’ favorite thing about the beach was the donut man who walked around selling fresh donuts to sunbathers. A tasty bargain!

We thought the 2 best things to do in Mykonos were to visit the historic site at Delos and to get lost in the winding little streets of Mykonos Town. Nice to do without crowds, which meant wandering deep into town, being lucky, or maybe going early before the cruise ships arrive (and when the party people are asleep).

*****

DELOS

The birthplace of Apollo and Artemis in Greek mythology, Delos was one of the most important religious sites in Ancient Greece (around 500 BC). It was even larger and more built up in Roman times (around 150 BC) when it was a tax haven and therefore a thriving, rich island. The more things change…

The island later became uninhabited, and its significance was largely forgotten. The excavations of the ancient sites started around 1873 by the French. It is amazing how much of the world has been forgotten/ lost/ swept away for long periods of time. What physical remnants of our society would archeologists of the future find? What would they think of us?

Here is Huey with the lion statues at Delos, probably the most well-known works on the island. Below that, see Gigi (Jamie’s mom) sitting on one of the lion statues when she came to Greece 65 years ago. Different rules back then — but always fun to come to Greece as a kid!

We loved the mosaic floors in the houses.

2100+ year old dice and measuring cups.