We didn't know it then, but when we mentioned the island 'Mikonos' most of the people we spoke to straight away said : "Ah Party Island" and " LGBT friendly", I knew this was going to be a real fun 3 day 2 night stay.
MIkonos is in between Athens and Santorini. Greece has some 6000 odd islands and islets, and there are inhabitants in less than 300, so if you actually wanted to visit all the inhabited ones, assuming you stayed 1 week in each one, you woudl spend 227 weeks or roughly 4 years and 5 months just visiting each and every one !
We had a transfer at 6.00 am for a ferry at Athens port to take us to Mikonos. The Seajet ferry is both a vehicular, and passenger ferry and can easily seat 1000 passengers plying the major islands of Saxos, Mikonos, Santorini and many others.
Our hotel called the Elena Hotel was perfect for us ; situated at near the top of the mount, all we had to do was to walk downhill via the narrow alleyways, and we are in the main downtown street of the capital, called Chora.
The place has a buzzing vibe. Coupled with clear tourquise blue waters, the windy waterside is everything a holidaymaker would want. Great seafood restaurants by the waterside, touristy shops selling souvenirs, whitewashed buildings with their blue domes (greek home churches). The vibe here is relaxed and friendly
Tourists are mainly from Europe (Germany, UK and French make the largest gorups) and then there are the US (North and South). I recall standing in a bus full of noisy Italian tourists from Palermo. They were obviously happy and drunk just to be here and their extended family and friends numbered over 20, or almost half of the bus capacity.
Lunch was at Kadena, waterside restaurant, and we seem to be the only Singaporeans here. Several of the shopkeepers thought I was from the US, and when I told them that I was from Singapore, they were genuinely pleased.
Tourists from Asia are well received, as we (as a rule) cause no or little problems and tend to be (relatively) big tippers to the serving staff and tour guides.
In the afternoon, we headed off to Paradise Beach.
That, in itself is another story for another blog post.
CARPE DIEM.
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