Mykonos, June 29th, 2009

Today's Greek word of the day: Yeea-hara which means, "health and joy".

Most of this day was spent at sea. While the children played in the kids' club, Karen and I worked out in the gym, Ray worked out in the casino, and I believe David was relaxing in one of the ships' air-conditioned lounges...

The ship made a technical stop (to disembark and embark passengers) in the port of Lavrion. The stop here took longer than anticipated so our arrival into Mykonos was delayed until 8pm. Unfortunately, this would be much too late to try and see the island sanctuary of Delos, an important archaeological site known as the birthplace of Apollo and Artemis. As such, after lunch and naps, we saw an early "Latin Fever" show before dinner and ate in the formal dining room as the ship sailed into Mykonos. Since we were arriving late, the captain arranged to dock the ship closer to town where we hopped on tenders directly to Mykonos Harbour.

When we arrived into Mykonos (part of the Cyclades group of islands in the middle of the Aegean Sea), the sun was low in the sky which cast beautiful light on this gorgeous! island. As we started taking in the sights and walking through town, we said our "oooohs and aaaahs" as this was what we envisioned the Greek Isles to be.

As we continued exploring, we walked past tidepools, a little beach, and passed several restaurants along the water's edge offering as you would expect spectacular views. The town itself encompassed several charming narrow winding streets showcasing the cycladic blue and white architecture famous in many travel journals. There were so many neat little shops here to browse through. Of course, with the kids, shopping had to be kept pretty short and simple. We walked up the hill to see the windmills of Mykonos which offered more beautiful views of the island.

The weather was very warm so we stopped for some fruit smoothies before heading back to the ship. We hopped on a tender back to our ship at about 10:45pm, then headed straight for bed!

Although our visit to Mykonos was brief, we were there long enough to see what a beautiful little island it is...