Mykonos

Our last island stop on the cruise was in Mykonos. We opted to walk into town from where we were ported as opposed to paying $12USD each for a 5 min bus ride. Although we felt good about the extra excercise and cost savings, we definitely felt like we were taking our lives into our own hands. First impressions: clean, very gay friendly, lots of shirtless people on mopeds and quads, and of course the iconic blue and white architecture. We made a short stop at a water-side cafe and enjoyed the view of the water and the windmills across the bay. 

From here we took a quick walk uphill to the bus depot, I guess this is where you can catch a shuttle to one of the party beaches like Paradise beach or Super Paradise beach; however we could see a little quiet looking sandy spot on the water not too far and opted for that instead. On the way over we found a little convenience store run by a friendly (what we assumed to be lesbian) couple from England. The most exciting part of the store wasn’t the service staff but rather the fact that they had the wine that Jay had fallen in love with from Athens. We scooped one and now have it chilling in our fridge for our 1 year anniversary. We spent the rest of that afternoon relaxing 

After the afternoon on the beach and lunch, we wandered back into the whitewash town to explore. What we found was that the cleanliness and architectural controls on the island are extensive and made for a great atmosphere. Roof-top pool parties at boutique hotels with buff-dudes is definitely the “in” thing to do on Mykonos. 

We found a great look out spot and waited out the sunset. We agreed that we’ve never seen a more beautiful sunset before. 

On our way back we stopped by the boardwalk on the docks and had one last greek meal before walking back to the ship in the dark. Walking back was far more exhilarating than the walk out. 

Overall, we’d highly recommend a visit to Mykonos and Rhodes, but you can definitely skip Crete. We will definitely go back to Kusadasi someday and perhaps Israel if things ever settle down...

We eagerly awaited our arrival in Istanbul, but first we had one last day at sea and sailed through the Dardanelles.