Mykonos is a fascinating place. I suspect I’m not really the target visitor for Mykonos as it is now (I’m not a designer brand shopper or a clubber), but the maze of whitewashed streets, interesting buildings and bougainvillea blooms are beautiful.
We were in Mykonos at the end of September 2022 as part of a 3 week trip, so all my notes are based around my experiences at that time. Please do check any dates/opening times/locations etc. if you’re planning your own trip – things change! Links are to websites if I can find useful ones, or Google Maps locations if not, so you can see where they are. Please also note this post contains some affiliate links, indicated with a ‘*’ – if you click them and decide to buy something I may receive a small cut of the payment, but it won’t cost you more. Thank you!
You can read my notes on what we got up to below, but if you are short on time here are my top recommendations on what to do in Mykonos, plus you can take a look at my more general notes on travelling in Greece: Athens, the Peloponnese and a few islands, too:
Travel:
Ferryhopper: Pre-book a ferry from Piraeus to Mykonos (get the metro there if you’re coming from central Athens). We got the app so we could check in online in advance (48 – 2 hours before departure)
We were coming from Nafplio, so we used KTEL Argolida to buy tickets for the bus, which leaves from Nafplio bus station and arrives at KTEL Bus Terminal A, Kifisou. We used the BEAT app to get a taxi to Piraeus but you can check Citymapper for public transport connections.
Do/see/visit:
Use Rick Steves’ ‘Greece: Athens & the Peloponnese*’: for planning, self-guided walks and useful information.
Rarity Gallery: a varied selection of work (way beyond my budget, but great to look at)
Drink:
MANTO garden Cafè: lovely coffees in a garden oasis of calm away from the crowds.
Eat:
Bakery: can’t seem to find the real name but we enjoyed the doughnuts and koulouri in this lovely bakery.
Taverna Marco Polo: cute outdoor seating area for simple, tasty food at reasonable prices.
Stay:
Hotel Lefteris*: really lovely contemporary chic hotel in a great location near the Old Port. There’s a great communal roof terrace with a clothes rack for anyone wanting to dry wet clothes or laundry.
Travelling to Mykonos
We travelled to Mykonos from Nafplio via Athens, as detailed above. From Athens you catch a ferry from Piraeus to Mykonos, which takes about 5 hours.
We had a bit of a wait at the port so we visited Lidl to buy things to make sandwiches and made use of a surprisingly very clean loo at that end of the port (near gate E3 – I can’t link precisely to it but it’s within the port, roughly in line with this bus stop outside.
We headed in to the ship at 15:00 and it was already pretty full, an hour before departure, so it’s worth getting there early if you want to secure a good seat. We took airline seats near a window, got some drinks from the café and settled in.
5 hours wasn’t so bad, we read, went for a wander on the sun deck and later shared a spinach and a cheese and ham pie. The seats were a little tired but they were comfy enough.
Eventually we were all standing in the bottom of the boat, watching doors open as we swung round into port, then spilling out into the night. The sea bus was well signposted and we joined the cheery looking festoon light lit vessel that took us from the New to the Old Port at Mykonos.
It was super busy on the harbour but we located our hotel, Hotel Lefteris*, fairly easily and let ourselves in as instructed. It was a very stylish, sleek room made to look like it was cut into the white walls of the island, with a dark grey wet room and a fantastic roof terrace everyone was welcome to use.
We dumped our bags and headed out to buy water – what a bizarre experience! The winding little alleys are all super brightly lit and people are everywhere browsing designer stores, drinking, or sitting outside Sephora judging people’s outfits.
How we spent a full day in Mykonos
Old Town walk, windmills, peaceful coffee, art, baked goods, balcony views
We got up reasonably early and had a breakfast of Melba toast-like things with honey with Dulce Gusto coffee that were provided in the room, then headed out to explore. As we only had one day here we decided to stick to the Old Town, and started with trusty Rick Steves’* walk round the main sights of the little churches, marble fish prep table, ‘marshmallow’ churches and the windmills. Everything is very beautiful so we walked carefully around all the portraits being taken, crowds trying to get selfies under the bougainvillea and people just randomly stopping or changing direction, doing much the same ourselves (though minus a glam team, which we did see at least once).
The tour took us past Cine Manto Mykonos, which is not only an amazing looking outdoor cinema, but also a lovely garden café, so we went back there for a very quiet coffee and sit down, very tranquil away from the more crowded streets.
We went into Rarity Gallery, a very swanky gallery with immaculate, dramatically black-gowned gallery attendants who told us more about the work, which was really varied and stunning. It’s the kind of place I used to be scared to go into, but since working in a gallery myself I know that the people working there largely like people to come in to see the work on display, even if they can’t even begin to think of buying anything – art is made to be experienced!
We wandered around some more and picked up some doughnuts from a bakery, which we ate by the Church of Panagia Paraportiani, wandered more, fascinated by the place, getting confused by all the lanes, then bought some sesame koulouri’s and Fanta to have on the terrace at our hotel, making use of the drying rack up there to do some more laundry.
We had to pick up new tickets for tomorrow’s ferry so we went to Sea and Sun Travel in the harbour as instructed and then had another mini wander about before relaxing on the terrace for a bit longer.
We had a plan of where to go for dinner but when we went there were already quite a few people sitting waiting for tables. It wasn’t a particularly interesting street to sit on, people didn’t seem to have drinks and we figured it’d be at least an hour’s wait so we had a Google and went to Taverna Marco Polo instead.
It was a cute looking restaurant with festoon lights and checkered tablecloths tables outdoors. We ordered a moussaka and soutzoukakia (meatballs with a cumin sauce) and shared them both with a carafe of the coldest red wine I’ve ever experienced. It was quite a speedy dinner but very pleasant and reasonably priced! They gave us mini magnum-style cookie ice creams as a pudding which was lovely, and we went for a little wander to see the windmills at night, passing the varying party venues, back to our room to pack again.
Leaving Mykonos
It was a fairly early start to catch the boat to Santorini and nice to have a glimpse of the streets deserted. We got the sea bus to the new port and joined the massive crowd for the ferry. It wasn’t too long a trip on a fairly big ferry with nice allocated seating and one of Jos Verstappen’s F1 cars to look at.
I enjoyed exploring Mykonos but as mentioned at the top, there were moments I was aware I’m not the current target visitor, which is fine! It is a beautiful, fascinating place and it would be interesting to explore a bit more of the island.
Next stop: Santorini
Notes on Travel is a blog by photographer Jayne Lloyd, noting the things I found useful to know when I was visiting Ancient Olympia in September 2022 as part of a 3 week trip around Athens, the Peloponnese and a few islands. I’ve tried to be accurate but please do check for up-to-date information before going as things are always changing! I apologise for any mistakes, please do let me know if you have more recent info.
* This post contains some affiliate links, indicated with a ‘*’ – if you click them and decide to buy something I may receive a small cut of the payment, but it won’t cost you more. Thank you!