Ferry To Mykonos

“Do not train a child to learn by force or harshness;
but direct them to it by what amuses their minds,
so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy
the peculiar bent of the genius of each.”

PLATO

I love this quote that I recently stumbled upon and felt it was appropriate for our travels in Greece and with our many unschool “field trips” of late to great historical sites which have been propelled by Mozart’s passions. I feel so blessed that she has gotten to see so many wonderful sites in Turkey and Greece from Knossis Palce to Troy, Ephesus and more, with a chance to talk to archeologists on the job and walk thru so many historical treasures and startling sights.

There are a few more that we wanted to see before leaving Greece, including a trip to Delos that is easily toured from Mykonos, plus Dephi, Mycenae, and Olympos etc on the mainland and Peloponnese.

“Pink ferry homschool” is what we called the fun of long division as a diversion on a long ferry ride on our way to Mykonos. Mozart loved the pun as she loves to play with words, she loved the pink decor of this ferry and she loves long division at the moment. When Mozart was not doing that she was reading or writing just like us. I love it that she can do “school” anywhere as I see life as a school that is constantly teaching us things.

I always look for outlets nearby when I board a ferry, so I can use the time to work on the blog as there are always things to do in that area and it makes the time pass by quickly. We had a nice view out the window as islands passed byand it seemed to be mostly a local crowd of Greeks on this ferry.

We almost did not make it to Mykonos as we had a choice of several islands that would bridge the gap between Samos and Santorini (since there are no direct ferries between those two). My original thought was to take the RV to Mykonos after Santorini and then onto Rafina, but the islands and ferries were getting too busy now and we wanted to get to the mainland and onto Croatia.

Late July in the height of high season, is not a good time to see Mykonos, for people like us, but I did
not want to miss it and it seemed like it was now or never. It is the most expensive, many say the
most beautiful and the quintessential blue and white Cyclades island. We had to pay a LOT more than anywhere else for our few days here, but we are still glad that we went for a small sample, despite
these less than ideal conditions.

I have heard about Mykonos for years and wanted to see it for myself and at least get a taste before we left Greece. My “e-friends” from Fodors forums, (especially Thanos who lives there), were a great help in guiding me to make the most of our time there. We could not believe how hard it was to book a room as everyone kept telling us that the whole island was booked up, but finally we found one thru an agency that was recommended.

Mykonos is a very barren looking island, especially after Samos which is so lush. We were picked up from our ferry by the Sunrise Hotel and were surprised at how very far our van was taking us thru a desolate landscape via hairpin curves. It was only 7km but felt like we were going to outer mongolia.

The good news is it was a quiet, pretty place with lush gardens and pool near one of the best beaches, where you would never know it was high season. The bad news is the heat wave was going on and no one mentioned that it is a horrible place to be without a rental car as there is no transportation that goes out this far.

For those who know Mykonos, it was on Agrari beach which is quite a walk from Elia beach which is the last stop for busses or boats from town. It was not exactly what we wanted but it was clean, very peaceful, and a nice family owned and ran it, so we would make the most out of it.

Mozart wasted no time changing and jumping into the pool and we joined her. We later watched a movie in our nice air conditioned room. We wandered down to the beach and watched the water skiing and wild raft rides available and Mozart dug to her hearts content in the sandy beach. There were nude and semi nude people of both sexes on the beach which is typical of Mykonos and did not phase Mozart as she is used to that at spas in our own home town.

At one point she caught a little butterfly inside the lobby which thrilled her. I was certain she must have killed it with her less that delicate enthusiasm, but she took it out to the beach and sure enough it flew away when she let it go, happy to be free again.

The water was incredibly clear and the stark beauty grows on you after a while. It also helps that they had planted lots of colorful mediterranean plants near the hotel. It really was the perfect place to be in high season, if only we had a car as there was not much choice in food and what there was, costs a young fortune. We did not even look at rental car prices as we were already way over budget with the hotel.

Things could always be worse for sure. We ran into an Athenian family there that had a son a little younger than Mozart and the father was from London, his wife was Greek. The kids played at the breakfast buffet and watched some videos on computer together in the lobby, while we both worked on ours. He told about his family and boyhood home in the Cotswolds that was being devastated by rain and floods while we were there, which helped put our minor concerns in perspective. We love the Cotwolds so were sad to hear this news and will always remember watching the video on the BBC in our room.