Mykonos, Greece
/(June 6th - June 9th, 2015)
Before we even started planning our trip, I found a hotel in Mykonos that was located on the beach, had gorgeous bohemian style decor, and was supposed to serve the most amazing cocktails and food made fresh with local, real, and organic ingredients. The minute I found it, I knew there was no other place I would want to stay whenever we made it to Greece. When Greece was officially added to our itinerary, I showed Allen and we agreed it would be our splurge to celebrate our 3rd wedding anniversary. We didn't plan to do much in Mykonos because we just wanted to enjoy the amazing food and relax, and that is precisely what we did at San Giorgio.
After surviving a much more pleasant ferry trip from Santorini to Mykonos, we were picked up at the ferry terminal by a nice man from our hotel. The minute we arrived at San Giogio, we couldn't stop smiling. The ocean was shimmering in the sunlight and had the most beautiful shades of turquoise, teal, and blue. The hotel was absolutely gorgeous with its bohemian decor, and the pool/bar/outdoor deck looked like where we would spend most of our time.
We quickly settled into our room and made our way down to the bar to enjoy our delicious welcome drink and the first of many memorable meals. After just the first sip of the welcome drink, we knew we'd be impressed with all future meals at the hotel. They cared about the ingredients, presentation, and always loved hearing our raving reviews. To start us off we enjoyed a caprese salad (of course), spaghetti pomodoro, and a zucchini, mint, and feta pasta. Everything was so fresh and colorful and I had to quickly take a photo before we scarfed down the entire meal. As soon as we finished our meal (merely minutes after it was brought out) we already couldn't wait until dinner. You would have thought we'd been starving for the past month of traveling, but as you all know it was quite the opposite! Full and happy, we made our way to the sun beds to take a little afternoon nap.
We were right in-between the infamous Paradise Beach and Paraga Beach, which meant we could hear party music every time the wind blew in our direction. Allen loved this of course as they were playing a lot of his favorite songs, and I was such a happy camper that nothing could have bothered me. After some serious relaxation, we walked down to Paraga Beach to check out the party scene. It was early evening so it wasn't super crowded, but we could definitely see its appeal. There were hundreds of beach chairs/umbrellas, walk up bars & restaurants, and multiple DJs blasting their music. We then headed in the opposite direction to check out Paradise Beach, the world famous party beach, to compare. What we didn't realize was that Paradise is a nudist friendly beach with certain areas on the beach that allow full nudity. As I was walking down the hill to get to the beach I was happily taking pictures of the water, beach umbrellas, bars and restaurants when all of a sudden I realize there was a fully naked, very tan man in the middle of my photo doing ab bicycle workouts on his beach towel. It took me a second to realize what I was seeing and then once I registered what was going on, didn't really know what to do :) After checking out the rest of the beach, trying my best to avoid as many other nudist beach goers as possible, we headed back to the hotel with some time to kill before dinner. We ordered some drinks from the bar and sat in swinging hammock chairs that hung at the edge of the pool, reading and enjoying the shade for the rest of the afternoon. By dinnertime, we were still full from our late lunch, but didn't want to miss out on another fantastic meal so we shared a Greek salad and chicken risotto and went to bed completely satisfied.
The next morning we woke up and enjoyed some coffee, Greek yogurt with fresh fruit and nuts, and a traditional bacon, eggs, and potato breakfast. We inquired about a few activities, but then decided to just go back to the pool and relax for the rest of the morning. We worked on editing photos, Allen listed to some podcasts and read recaps of all the NBA games he was missing out on, and we took several mini naps while poolside. I don't think we realized how tired we were from the last month of traveling, but we definitely caught up while in Mykonos!
By midday, the wind had picked up and the sky was getting overcast so we retreated back to the bar for an espresso martini and a green juice and took advantage of some of the best WiFi we had experienced on our entire trip. After hanging out for a couple of hours we decided it was time for lunch :) We shared some fresh tzatziki sauce, homemade herb bread, and another caprese salad and then took a nap in our hotel room. After a few thunderstorms passed, the sun was out again and we made our way back to the pool. The pool had these full body sized floating pillows that were difficult to get onto, but were probably the best things to have ever been invented. While floating on the pillow in the pool and soaking up the sun with not a care in the world, I decided that I was ready to leave my life in Seattle to retire in Mykonos at the age of 28 :)
We enjoyed the rest of the afternoon by the pool before catching an amazing sunset that lit up the entire sky. We ended the night with a late dinner of vegetable risotto, a burger, and a pineapple and Greek yogurt dessert. We laughed at how few calories we had burned all day and decided that we should probably be a little more active the next day.
The next morning we woke up and started our day off with some coffee, Greek yogurt with fresh fruit and nuts, and avocado toast topped with a fried egg. We took our time and worked on trip photos/blogging and planned out our day. Evidently talking about being more active wore us out, so we took a quick nap in the sun before heading down to the hotel's private beach. The private beach turned out to be more like a private small dock, but was very peaceful and the water was crystal clear. Allen practiced his bouldering skills to get a better view of the beaches nearby while i enjoyed the view.
After finishing up at the beach, we enjoyed an open face steak sandwich and spaghetti pomodoro for lunch and then got ready to explore the town of Mykonos. We took a cab to town and were dropped off at "Little Venice" which is a small area with several bars, restaurants, and shops that were built right on the edge of the sea. The view was incredible and the bits of color on the buildings popped against the white walls and blue sea and sky. Every bar and restaurant with a sea view was completely packed so we decided to walk around for a bit before coming back to enjoy a drink. There were lots of shops, cute little balconies and alleyways, and cafes on almost every corner. I felt like i was seeing every photo of Mykonos on Pinterest in real life...and trying to capture it on my phone. We stopped in a few shops and then Allen found a barber to give him a quick trim. It was much less of a luxurious experience than he had in Venice, but he was just happy that it didn't take long and was pretty cheap. We made our way back to the water and I enjoyed a raspberry champagne drink while Allen tried the house cocktail. I don't think he saw yogurt as one of the ingredients because he was very surprised when a mason jar filled with what looked like pepto-bismol was brought to our table. We sat and watched sail boats go by and realized that we only had one more stop before returning home to Seattle. The first few weeks went nice and slowly, but the final few weeks flew by. It was nice to slow things down for a couple days while in Mykonos, but we tried to make the most of it as we knew London would be a complete whirlwind trying to fit in as much as we could in three short days.
We made dinner plans in the town of Mykonos with a couple we met on our sailing tour in Santorini, but as the sun started to go down, we realized how cold it was going to get so we quickly went back to our hotel to change and then made our way back to town to find the restaurant. Once we met up with our friends we enjoyed catching up from the past few days since the sailing tour and shared stories about about our dogs, weddings, and life back on the west coast. Allen and I enjoyed yet another delicious meal (our first meal not from our hotel) including a hummus plate, thai salad, lamb shank, seared tuna, and a chocolate dessert :) After a great evening with our new friends we headed back to our hotel to start packing and getting ready for our last stop. We enjoyed one last morning at our hotel where we fit in breakfast, out last poolside nap, some photo uploading/blog work, and a quick lunch before heading to the airport. We were sad to leave Mykonos and the pure relaxation we had experienced over the past few days, but both of us were starting to get restless as we are used to a much more active lifestyle. We definitely were taking a few extra pounds with us to London, but at this point in our trip we were just trying to soak up every last minute that we could.
Off to our last stop...London!!
