Mykonos - We Thought It Was Good...

For those of you who know me well know that I am not a beachy person. I would much rather be laying in my hammock in the forest next to a camp fire, that is my idea of relaxation. So while I was super excited to go to Mykonos, I was somewhat nervous that all we would be able to do is lay on the beach and drink friuty drinks all day, which I think sounds grand, but I just can’t do it for some reason, damn my anxiety!

But I will have to say it surprised me! After checking into by far the nicest (for the price) hotel we have ever stayed in, we walked around Mykonos Town. I was not aware how large the island of Mykonos actually is! Our hotel was in a great location as it was only a short to the town center, as well as a short walk to a popular tourist attraction, the windmills.

View from our room

Semeli Hotel Pool

Mykonos Town

Windmills of Mykonos

After exploring a bit we saw tons of people riding ATV’s, I stopped in one of the places to see how much they were. When they quoted us €20 for 24 hours, we decided we had to do this. Our hotel was kind enough to call their preferred rental place, who picked Nick up on their motor scooter and he was shortly back to pick me up. This was the smallest 4 wheeler I have ever been on, and with two large Americans it struggled at times. Apparently there is a law where they can only have a certain amount of horsepower and this had what seemed like none! I’m pretty sure Liz, Erin and I’s bikes in Portofino had more!

But regardless, we had so much fun driving around the island, seeing the different beaches and getting out of the highly populated Mykonos Town (due to all the cruise boats). We stopped at a roadside cafe and had the best Greek meal I ate the entire time we were in Greece.

Greek Olives, Feta & Mythos

Our sweet ride for the day

After returning our ATV we headed into town for dinner, and then tried our best to relax before our next day of adventure.

On Trip Advisor I located a kayaking trip around Mykonos that had amazing reviews, so I decided to go for it. While neither Nick nor I had ever kayaked before I was a little nervous as kayaking out in the Aegean Sea for our first go at it seemed daunting! At promptly 930 am we were picked up by a nice man in a minibus and taken to a beach on the other side of the island where we met our guides for the day, Jo and Nikolas. Their business is family run and here to find out the man who picked us up was Jo’s husband and Nikolas’ father and our chef.

After a quick lesson about kayaking and getting us all individually set up in our two man kayaks we were off paddling around Mykonos. There is no way that I will ever be able to describe the day we had, it was just magical and one of the best days of this entire adventure. From the kayaking, delicious snacks overlooking the sea, snorkeling from a tiny, private beach, homemade Greek lunch on the beach, eating sea urchins that we caught while snorkeling, and chit chatting with our new friends, it was so relaxing! Better then sitting on a beach with a fruity drink any day!

Nick ready to cast off

Nick post snorkling

Amazing day of kayaking and snorkling

Lunch on the beach

Sea Urchin

Jo and Nikolas were the best guides anyone could have ever asked for! They never pressured any of us to do something we didn’t want to. They were full of information about Mykonos, Greece and even shared plenty of their own personal stories, genuinely nice people and we were privileged to be able to spend the day with them. After our day long excursion we returned back to our hotel via minibus, where we relaxed before getting ready to head into town to see one more sunset before we left this amazing island!

Mykonos sunset

Beautiful!

The town pelican – he was literally just walking around the streets

Mykonos surpassed any expectation that I could have ever had for it, it will be a place that I will remember for a long time and hope one day to be able to return to, but until then I am forever grateful for the amazing memories that we made.