Paros to Mykonos

I woke up before 9am and went down for breakfast. We packed our gear up and had it downstairs by 10.20. We loaded our bags into the hotel minibus and walked to the port – John had me make sure I had my bag. There was quite a line-up for the Seajet to Mykonos already and we took our place. I was worried about the trip in a smaller enclosed boat, even though it was only an hour long, so made sure I took a tablet. We stashed our bags on the back deck and I got a window seat at the back of the boat. The trip was flat and uneventful – we passed Delos on the way and John pointed out Mykonos out the window as we got near.

We found our bags, got off and waited for the hotel minibus. The bags went on the roof (courtesy of John) though Scott and Michael chose to do their own. We made the hair-raising drive to Hotel Petinos (the reason John didn’t recommend mopeds on any island but Paros) and sorted out rooms and keys. Our bags were labelled and taken to our rooms for us. The hotel in Paros had been nice and clean and family-run, but this one was absolutely beautiful – it’s traditional blue and white with shutters and has a large internal courtyard and fountain and painted stones on the ground. The rooms inside were very comfortable and mine, Lena’s and Carine’s was huge.

We had a nice lunch in the hotel restaurant at 10% discount (I had haloumi and dolmades served with tomatoes), and went back to our rooms for our swimming gear. We went to the pool and had fun with li-los and bombing off the diving board.

We met in the foyer at 7.30 to catch a bus into town for the walking tour and night out. We bought bus tickets for €1.10 at the shop and got on the rather clapped-out bus and did the drive into the town. From the bus stop we walked to the left around the outside of town to the windmills. They are only for show. We then walked the horseshoe – the only straightforward collection of roads in Mykonos town, so planned to disorient pirates - and got a taste for the shops before coming out near where the Delos boats leave from. We then walked past a folklore museum and the most photographed church in all the islands (except perhaps Santorini). We then walked through the narrow shopping street of Little Venice and ended up back near the windmills. That was the end of the walking tour and we split up – some going with John to the gyros shop and the rest of us going back to Hotel Nikos for a sit-down dinner at John’s suggestion. The service was a little poor, but I had fish of the day done in tomato and garlic which was lovely.

We made our way to the Rhapsody Bar where John was and ordered our two-for-one cocktails only to see John leave. We were all disappointed but stayed on. I had four cocktails and was quite drunk. We left after the crowd moved on to Paradise Beach and all the drinks were gone. We tried and failed to find the Scandinavian Bar, found the gay bar uncomfortably packed and playing awful music, so walked until we found some music we liked. We didn’t find any, so somehow found our way back to the bus stop through the middle of the town. We were just in time for the last bus at 2am and when we got back to the hotel went down to the beach for a Baileys. It was nice down there with the waves crashing but the bar closed at 2.30. We went to bed around 3am.