44 - Mediterranean Cruise - Beyond the Windmills: Discovering Mykonos's Charm & Delos's Sacred Past

We started our visit to Mykonos with a trip to the island of Delos, and a visit to the ruins of the ancient Sacred City rumored to be the site of Artemis and Apollo's birth.  We continued on to Old Town, had an amazing lunch before heading back to the ship and savored an amazing sunset on the way out of the port! 

Episode Transcript

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Today onTravel Time wevarevisiting Mykonos and Delos,
Greece. We arrived in Mykonosearly in the morning. We left
the ship fairly early for ourexcursion. We were headed out on
the Delos Island excursion,which is MY01 in the Disney
catalog on Disney site. As wejust embarked we walked from the
ship to a ferry nearby for a 30minute ride to Delos. Delos is
very close to Mykonos. Delos iscurrently an uninhabited island

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which was the sacred islandwhere the Titanus Leto gave
birth to Zeus' twins Apollo andArtemis, according to the
legend. In ancient times, Deloswas the political and religious
center of the Aegean. The islandis now an archaeological site
but the ruins and templesmansions and monuments. The
island was first settled in thethird millennium BC, and reached
the peak of its glory during thearchaic and classical period

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after 167 BCE and following thedeclaration of Delos as a free
port. All of the commercialactivity of the eastern
Mediterranean was concentratedon the island. The residents of
Delos included merchants,bankers and ship owners, which
also attracted artists andcraftsmen. The prosperity of the
island and friendly relationswith the Romans ended up causing
its destruction. It was attackedand looted twice in 89BC by

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through Davies, and then in 69BC by the Pirates of Atlanta
tourists and our way ofmethodologies. After the second,
the island fell into decline andwas gradually abandoned. It was
captured after its abandonmentby a series of nations and
became a quarry site for columnswere taken for lime and houses
left in ruins. The excavationstarted in 1872 and are still in
progress and they have uncoveredthe sanctuary and part of the

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Hellenistic town. The portionsexcavated so far speak of the
grandeur of the sacred island Webegan by walking towards the
statues of lions were originallynine to 12 Guardian lions lining
the sacred way. The statues ofthe lions were dedicated to
Apollo by the people of Naxosjust before 600 BCE, the sacred
way goes by the oasis whereApollo and Artemis were born. A
fun fact is that because of thesacred nature of the island, no

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mortal was permitted to be bornor die on the island. Even
during the peak years, women onthe brink of childbirth or
people close to dying would becarried over to the neighboring
island and now we continued tofollow and pass the Delos lions
and looked upon the oasis wherethe twins were born. We
continued on to the sanctuarywhere the temples to Apollo and
Artemis were located alongsidethe merchant stalls, ships

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coming into port would buy andsell items here in the busy
commercial center. From there wecould also see the arches and
smaller temples up on thehillside. We continued on to the
theater which has been excavatedand through the residential
streets. The artwork in many ofthe mansions still exists,
including some statues and somestunning mosaics, like one
showing Dionysus, dolphins andTritons. Many of the mosaics

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served as entrances thedifferent mansions you can walk
through or look into. After thetheater we headed back to the
dock to reboard are very back toMykonos. We spent about three
hours on Delos all together. Theferry both there and back had
seating indoors and I believesome seating outdoors as well.
The trip was about 30 minutesand it had some nice views. The
ferry does have a snack bar andbathroom facilities. Although

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the bathrooms are also availablewhen you land and Delos right at
the dock and only at the dockssince it's an active
archaeological site. We weredropped off at old port also
known as Mykonos Town and hadsome time to study and exploring
there we were dropped off nearthe windmills in Mykonos. We
walked up the hill to take somepictures by the church which
were also afforded some views ofthe windows in the bay walking

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through the town. Down the hillfrom the church we came upon a
nice Greek restaurant that wasnot too crowded. It did not have
views like the ones down on thecoast but the food was
excellent. The seating was alloutdoors and the iconic white
tables and chairs were situatedin a little town square. I have
not been able to find the nameof it on the maps but got the
feeling the restaurant wasnewer. The Souvlaki was amazing

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as was the Greeks stew that theyserved. Everything from the
salad to dessert was terrific.
We continued on through towntowards the coast to head to the
shuttle. There a little touristyshops along the way we stopped
to get a little ornament to takehome. We have a Christmas tree
that we decorate every year allin ornaments from places we
traveled so anytime we gosomewhere new we pick up a
Christmas ornament as a souvenirfor me can notice I found a

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little white Greek church with awindmill behind it. The shuttle
to the port was free and it'sjust a short walk from the main
street of old town can catch theshuttle in a bus depot sort of
building. It has publicrestrooms available as well. The
shuttle ride to the ship was aquick 10 to 15 minutes back to
the port and ship on the way outof Mykonos. The sunsets were
phenomenal. Definitely make sureyou head out to the veranda or

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open deck to see the views onyour way sailing out of Mykonos.
Next up for us was Santorini sothat will be our next episode.
Until then happy travels. I dowant to add a quick note that
I'm not proficient in Greek. Soif I messed up into
pronunciations, I do sincerelyapologize. I tried to get them
as close as I could, based onpronunciation guides on the
internet. Thank you so much.