Delos & Mykonos

We spent the morning on Delos, a small island that is totally an archeological open-air museum. The history of the island goes back 5000 years when it was designated as a sacred place for protection and about 3000 years ago Delos civilization was at its peak, with a population of 50 000 people. Considering the world’s population at that time was


20 million, Delos was quite the metropolis. On a rocky outcropping with no water and no food – in other words everything to sustain life was imported – that’s pretty amazing. In 88BC the population of the island was annihilated, 20 000 murdered and 20 000 sold into slavery by, you guessed it, the Romans. From that point onward Delos became slowly abandoned and the 3 and 4 story buildings that hadn’t already been destroyed, collapsed and fell into ruin and over time the ruins just looked like jagged hills.

About 150 years ago, the excavating began and is still a work in progress, with much of the lost city still buried under hills. Because the destruction and deterioration of the site is part of the history, what you see on the island is pretty much exactly what they found when they dug down through the rubble and there has been only minimal restorative work, like re-erecting columns and gluing together artistic marble pieces.


The row of what used to be 16 marble lions, dating back 3000 years and the amphitheatre, are probably the most impressive artifacts on this totally fascinating island.
We were fortunate to have a good interpretive guide named George, lead us through the site. He had us imagining that we were visitors to the island 3000 years ago and every turn on the original streets, under which was the original sewer system, we saw the vitality and community that was Delos.

Every time we’ve had an opportunity to visit ancient civilizations or the remnants of them and we see how much culture, art and organized commerce there was, we realize how oppressive the middle ages must have been, to send us so far backwards and make us learn things all over again. I might reiterate, at this point, that Christianity and the Church were the greatest perpetrators of what I like to call this negative progress.
Our guide George also introduced us to the original crocodile, which are the lizards that populate Delos. The bigger ones are only around 6 inches, but apparently Homer, who was already familiar with these little guys, gave the same name to the big ones he saw on the Nile, probably saying something like, “Man, the crocodiles you’ve got, are sure a lot bigger than the puny ones on Delos.”

It was another torch of a day, so after a couple hours wandering around this open-air museum, it was nice to have a cool break back in our staterooms, before heading out on our afternoon excursion to Mykonos.

As we quickly discovered, Mykonos is a tourist favourite because it has the sun but doesn’t get too hot due to a mistral-type wind that blows daily. That would explain the famous windmills and that would also explain why cruise ships don’t like coming to Mykonos – it tough to tender passengers.

Immediately upon entry to the town, we were met by the town mascot, a great big, ornery pelican. You’re allowed to try to feed him fish, but most weren’t impressed when he snapped at them to gobble down the prize.

The layout of Mykonos was designed to confuse pirates. Its streets are narrow and extremely convoluted. I’m sure they’ve eaten up many a tourist. Our walking tour was good, but not quite up the standard of other tours we’d been on. It was basically a walking tour of the town, but we started off at the museum, which was a collection of patched up Greek urns. Don’t care if I see another Greek urn – ever!


The walk through the streets of white houses was the highlight. Of course the Mykonos landmark are the windmills, once used to grind the wheat and barley on the island, now just tourist attractions.


One of the last things we did on our tour was sit down in a taverna and sample some local specialties – ouzo, dolmades (rice wrapped in grape leaves), tzaziki(sp), terasalada(sp), aubergine dip, fried anchovies and calamata in 2 forms. We would have been disappointed had we not had the opportunity to sit in a taverna and eat local fare, so this was a real treat.

Getting back to ship was a bit of a challenge for the crew, as the seas had grown during the day. Jumping from the tender to the ship’s platform could prove difficult for some of the passengers, but we made it, no problem. When we commented, “That was interesting!” one of the ship’s officer’s simply replied, “Mykonos! Always windy.”
Well that’s it for the Greek islands. We’ve enjoyed them all in different ways and we’re really happy to have had the opportunity to see them, albeit briefly. Tomorrow, Turkey!