Before we talk about today's arrival in Mykonos, we have to report on the rest of our day yesterday! We arrived in Athens at 7:30 pm and were happy we had transportation arranged to our hotel at the Port of Athens (called Piraeus). Within minutes of getting to our rooms, there was a knock at our door and a lovely lady was standing there with 4 complimentary glasses of sangria! What a way to start the evening...Pete says, "I don't even like Sangria, but this was the best I've ever had"...Jim says "I was gob-smacked!"

The one thing we have learned on this trip is that when we go out for dinner, we always go in the opposite direction of where the best restaurants are located! (and this is not on purpose!) We asked the hotel front desk person, a nice young man from Albania, for assistance on finding the best local restaurants in the area. He sent us off in the opposite direction of where we would have intuitively gone...into the noise and confusion of the Athens streets, and found our way to one of our best meals of the trip! The name of the restaurant was Gefstiki Gonia and we had an amazing meal of Greek salad (of course!), gyros, pork loin, tzatziki and warm pita bread. The flavors were truly amazing! Just when we thought we couldn't eat another bite, they brought out a plate of watermelon and pieces of cake soaked in honey! We were so full on the walk back to the hotel we thought we would be an easy target for the gypsies to rob us! We were also happy that we had a little fridge in our hotel room in order to take the leftovers for lunch on today's ferry ride to Mykonos.

After a chaotic experience boarding the ferry to Mykonos at 7:00 am this morning, we left the big city behind and sailed into the blue waters of the Mediterranean Sea! We read, dozed and ate our leftovers during the 4 hour ferry ride to Mykonos. A group of young people from Greece entertained us with their singing and dancing, and before long, we arrived at the beautiful Mykonos port.

We checked into our sea view hotel, and enjoyed our first Mykonos gin and tonic on our balcony. (photo #1, photo #2 is the view from our balcony) We were then ready to set out down the narrow street and make the 30 minute walk to explore Mykonos town. The streets in the center of town are closed to cars and are a labyrinth maze of crisscrossing streets and narrow alleys. This was originally planned to confuse and disorient marauders and pirates, and today this has the same effect on tourists! We wandered around a bit before locating the town square and the crowded little grocery store. (photos 3, 4 and 5)

As per her usual style, Karen approached a young Greek man shopping for his own groceries. Within minutes, he was assisting us with our list; advising on which Greek yogurt to buy, which tzatziki he approved of, which feta was best and finally assisting Jim on the selection of the olives. While all this was going on, Kelley wandered into the wine section and discovered some interesting Greek Retsina wine for Jim and Pete. With the young man's approval of the wine, we set off with our groceries in hand and headed back to our hotel to enjoy our dinner of Greek Salad, chicken souvlaki, barley rusks drizzled with olive oil and wine (Retsina for the men, red for the ladies!) (photo #6 is the men with their prized Retsina, photo #7 is our amazing dinner table...PS- the Greek salad is in a frying pan as we don't have a salad bowl!!)

Just as we were finishing today's blog, the Ruby Princess cruise ship set sail, and their horn played the tune from "Love Boat". We bid them "Bon Voyage", but secretly smiled...as we were the ones left behind in paradise!