Travel journal: east Med Princess cruise 2010 (Day 7)

Day 7, 11/16/2010: Mykonos

Mykonos is famous mainly for its picturesque streets and beaches and its trendy shops, restaurants, and nightlife scene, but not for many world-famous landmarks. Nearby lies the island of Delos, which is indeed one of the most important archeological sites in Greece. I had been hoping to catch a ferry over to it, but had been forewarned that it was probably too late in the season to do so, a rumor easily confirmed once we reached the port.

Fortunately, we’d also been forewarned that while Mykonos town was not far from the port, it was not an easily walkable distance and that the roads leading in were not pedestrian-friendly. Taxis were also not readily available near this terminal as with other ports, so Princess sold us passengers round-trip motorcoach transfers.

As we soon found out, the roads inside Mykonos town were no more pedestrian-friendly than the roads leading into it. Its narrow cobblestone streets had no sidewalks, and we were constantly moving aside for oncoming traffic. I shuddered to think what this place would be like during peak season.

We also found out just how easy it was to wander down one of those narrow, winding alleyways and get lost in the maze. We’d heard some vague directions to “follow the main road along the harbor” to reach Mykonos’ main attractions. We started doing so, but finding that the road dead-ended at a point, we turned left too early by accident, and thus got lost.

When we finally oriented ourselves, we found that we were on the farther end of town (across from Old Port where small boats and regional ferries docked) and near the last of the town’s main attractions. We saw the windmills from the outside only; unfortunately, it was forbidden to go in them. Next were Little Venice, a small area of shops and cafes that are built on the waterfront like those of its namesake, and the Paraportiani, a series of churches dating back to the 15^th century, which also had closed doors at the time of our visit. Then we returned using the route we should have used from the start of our tour, joining up with the main harbor road near the old port and the adjacent row of waterfront shops and cafés.

Even though getting lost had taken up some time, we were still at a lack of things to do after our relatively short walking tour of town. We then stopped into the Archeological Museum that we’d passed earlier on the paved road above the harbor. For 2€ per person, it had rather interesting displays of jars, statues, and crafts dating as far back as the 9^th century BC.

The rest of the day was just as low-key as our stay in port. I had laundry to catch up on, and while I waited on it, I did a little sunning on Deck 15, wrote, and people-watched.

For the evening, we chose a buffet dinner before going to see comedian Lenny Windsor, an Englishman with the typically suberb humor and wit. Kyle Esplin then had an all-new show that we saw, and after that we returned to the Promenade Lounge to see our favorite entertainer, Sammy Goldstein.

Tomorrow we call on the Turkish port of Kusadasi, which I’ve heard pronounced as both koo-sha-DAH-see and koo-SHAH-dah-see, and take our excursion to Ephesus.

1^st timers’ cruise tip: know before you go

Be sure to check the ship’s program or patter to see what entertainment options are available throughout the day. Ours was slipped under our door at night, and often we went to Passenger Services to request extras.