Pete and Chon's Euro Vacation: The Greek Islands

Mykonos and Delos

We arrived in the Greek Islands just outside the peak period so Mykonos seemed very quiet compared to the stories we had heard. We also met up with our friend Eva who we had last seen in London, over a month ago. One of the first things we did was to get stuck into the fresh seafood that the islands have to offer and it didn't disappoint. I have never eaten better octopus in my life nor so much of it.

Mykonos from our hotel

Three wheel scooter

Eating fresh seafood (with Eva)

Mykonos was a maze of small pedestrian streets amongst the white washed buildings. There was plenty of small shops, cafes, restaurants and bars for us to stop at but our favorite area was little Venice (called so because the water came right up to the restaurants and bars. It was near little Venice where we saw a large pelican called Pedro's wandering the alley ways. Apparently he was so lonely on the island that they brought in a female to keep him company.

Pedro's the pelican wandering the alley ways

To see more of the island, we hired two ATV's to access some of the more remote and beautiful beaches. On the way we stopped at a restaurant where we noticed a bunch of Eucalypts. I embarrassed Chon and myself when I asked the owner if he had planted the huge tree growing out of his restaurant which looked to be well over 100 years old.

Biker Chon

A beach that we visited on our ATV's

Famous wind mills from Mykonos

Before catching the late ferry to Santorini, we did a half day trip to the Greek ruins on Delos island. Delos was an impressively large site for such a small barren island. Unfortunately, most of it was destroyed in 69 BC but there was enough left to keep us busy with the camera.

Ruins at Delos island

Santorini

The ferry ride to Santorini takes you right into the creator left behind from the volcano. The island of Santorini makes up part of the creators edge. There are other smaller islands that make up the rest of the creators edge but there are large gaps filled with ocean. In the middle of the ocean filled creator is the volcanic islands. Aside from the volcano and the creator, the thing that grabs most of your attention is the white patches that dot the islands, which, from a distance, looks like snow on the top of these huge cliffs but is in fact the many villages perched on top of the cliffs on the creators edge.

Fira from the sea

View at Oia

Where we had breakfast every day (with Eva)

Streets of Santorini

When one bell just isn't enough

Boat sculpture thingy

View from a restaurant

We hired a car for a day to explore the island. Eva did the driving as she was used to driving on the right hand side of the road. Walking around the villages on the island and even driving along some of the roads gave me vertigo as it seemed like a long way down on some narrow paths and streets. One of the old paths from the port to the Fira town still uses donkeys to bring tourists up. The donkeys had little bells attached to them which was nice to hear unless you were eating dinner as that meant that what you were eating or about to eat would have traces of donkey smell mixed into the air.

Fira in the background

One of the many ships that frequently drop in near Fira

Donkeys working hard so tourists do not have to

Dinner at sunset

A few minutes later

I managed to get a couple of dives near the volcano and one near Santorini island while the girls did a half day cruise to explore the volcano and swim in the hot springs. It would have been very easy to stay on Santorini for much longer and it was sad to leave it behind.

Volcano near Santorini

The volcano heating up ;)

Naxos

Naxos was our final Greek island that we had organised to visit. It was the largest and most developed island but we had the least amount of time there. We once again hired a car to explore the outer reaches of the island. We visited the castle at Chora or Hora, the ruins of the Temple Apollo and the Dimitras Temple as well as a few villages and beaches around the island.