Mykonos Town

Located on the west coast, Mykonos Town is the tiny capital of Mykonos Island and is also known as ‘Chora’ by the locals.

Lonely Planet describes Mykonos as Greece’s answer to Ibiza – the party island! And Mykonos Town is where the action happens. This is also where the cruise ships dock which leads to an influx of cruise passengers each day.

For our recent 6 days in Mykonos we stayed in Kalafatis which is a peaceful location on the south of the island. We were about 10 km away from Mykonos Town and drove there twice during the days we had the rental car.

Parking on the first day was easy – we drove straight to ‘City Parking Mykonos’ which was large, free and had plenty of spaces. This was at about 10:30 in the morning. The following day we arrived back at 12:15 by which time the car park was full!

The car park was near to the Old Port and main bus station and a short sea front to the main town. We began with a coffee in Vento which was lovely, quite posh for a coffee stop and overlooked the sea. From there we wandered through the narrow and well maintained streets.

There are many speciality shops and restaurants to browse as you make your way around the labyrinth that is the old town. We came across what we thought was a pasta shop but is actually a restaurant!

We found our way to Little Venice (officially called Alefkandra) the charming and picturesque corner of Mykonos Town full of colour and quaintness. If you are lucky you can bag yourself a table next to the sea, although you may get splashed in certain spots!

The windmills of Mykonos Town feature on many a promotional website and are easily reached being just a 5 minute walk from Little Venice. If you don’t mind getting a little wet!

We, along with hundreds of other tourists were at the windmills trying get get photos. This is one of those places where Instagram rules as you will most likely see all manner of poses ready for the uploading and impressing of followers. Some people take ages as they indulge in their own fantasy photoshoot. I was lucky to get this relatively tourist free shot and had to be patient! (Not one of my strongest points…)

Time for a drink, or a refreshing sangria to be exact! We found a little respite from the tourists in the first floor bar of the TownHouse a small boutique hotel in the heart of the town. This was somewhat luxurious with its comfy balcony seating area overlooking Manto Mavrogenous square and its plush interior and massive chandelier!

I had a little nosey around the TownHouse and went up to the sky bar… it was closed however offered excellent views across the town and would probably be a wonderful place to enjoy an evening cocktail or two.

From the TownHouse we continued meandering around the maze of streets and at one point climbed the hill at the back of the town for more impressive views.

Above is Galatis Gallery which has been there since 1960. This was probably the only shop we entered but we were drawn in by the unique and interesting art on display.

The Church of Panagia Paraportiani can be found in the Kastro neighbourhood (very close to Little Venice). This church was opened in 1475 and is right next to the sea. It’s name means ‘Our Lady of the Side Gate’ as the entrance is at the side!

The ruins of Mykonos Castle are right next to the church. There was an interesting outdoor exhibition which showed ‘back in the day’ historical images in an around Mykonos Town.

Archaeological Museum of Mykonos

During our second visit to Mykonos Town we paid 4 euros each to visit the Archaeological Museum of Mykonos. We were in there for just under an hour and above right is a ‘pithos’ which is a large earthenware jar that would have been used for storing liquids, food or grain. This one was found in Mykonos and dates back to the 7th century BC.

The close up above shows scenes of the capture of Troy and the oldest known depiction of the Trojan Horse.

We enjoyed lunch on our first trip to Mykonos Town in Rhino Vegan Street Food where we had a cute little window seat! I ordered a ‘Black Rhino wrap’ for the reasonable cost of just 4.90 euros. This contained jackfruit and potatoes (which turned out to be chips)!

This was delicious and I found that this tasty little fast food joint happened to be Trip Advisor number 1 of 147 restaurants in Mykonos Town!

Back past Manto Mavrogenous Square and this time with a picture of the statue of Manto Mavrogenous. She was a beautiful and wealthy Greek heroin who spent her fortune in the Greek War of Independence. 200 years ago, she led the rebellion of the island of Mykonos against the Turks.

By way of a summary, despite the crowds Mykonos Town is delightful and interesting and well worth a visit. As we were wandering about on our first day we discovered it would be feasible to take a boat trip to a nearby island called Delos… this will be covered in our next post…