Vacation in Mykonos, Greece (Photo: Ziv ReinsteinEdit by Ziv Steiner)
Greece is preparing for another wonderful tourist season packed with tourists, and although the past year (2022) brought in "only" 27.8 million tourists (less than the peak of 33 million in 2019), this year the island nation expects a 20 percent increase in tourist numbers from last year, at least according to Greek Tourism Minister Vassilis Kikilias earlier this year.
Mykonos will be one of the islands competing for Israelis' attention this summer, but rising prices on holidays around the world could divert traffic to other islands. Mykonos is known as an island of luxury vacations that combines baldness for the rich who come to it to spend and unburden every burden, especially in prestigious hotels such as Cabo Tago and others.
Mykonos is known as the "Island of Winds" and has wind every day, even in August. "That's what attracted people here in the '70s and '60s," said Achilleas Charatsidis, manager of the Amyth of Mykonos Hotel, which opened on the island last month. According to him, the weather is always pleasant in summer but the real reason is that Mykonos at that time was one of the only places in Greece, and Europe, that accepted the gay community. "They came here and the sea was free to do whatever they wanted, combined with a hippie community that was already here, and together they made the island artistic and colorful." But for all the hedonism of Mykonos, it is still a religiously populated island with about 500 churches and 40 in the city itself. "The locals are traditional and it's customary for every family to have its own church," Achilles explains.
"I love the vibe that tourists bring here," a taxi driver told me in early May, as Mykonos began waking up from its long hibernation. "They come to rejoice and spend time here, not just sit at the beach quietly, and they give us, the locals, that energy." According to him, during the hot season (June to September), about 30 flights a day land on the island and another 200 ferries and cruise ships that dock there and drop off tourists. "Every day about 10,000 tourists come to the island, for a total of about three million in the summer," he says, and this is on an island of about <>,<> residents, including thousands who come to work seasonally from Athens.
One of the islands that will compete for Israelis' attention this summer. Mykonos, this month (Photo: Ziv Reinstein)
"Every day about 200,<> tourists come to the island." Cruise dropping tourists off in Mykonos (Photo: Ziv Reinstein)
With all the hedonism of Mykonos, it is still a religious place. One of about 500 churches on the island (Photo: Ziv Reinstein)
The island is known as an island of luxury vacations. Amyth of Mykonos Hotel (Photo: Ziv Reinstein)
One of the two most expensive islands to vacation on in Europe
Landing at the island's small airport, which is about four kilometers from the city itself, reveals one of the things Mykonos is most famous for - the white houses. Everything is white in Mykonos, even the streets painted with white-framed stones - creating a kind of beautiful hive of sidewalks and alleys, with most of the color coming from the red-purple bougainvillea bushes. In the summer, direct flights from Israel are supposed to land on the island, probably by AGEAN, but at the moment the arrival is via Athens, and from there another flight of about 45 minutes.
During the spring, Greeks are working on renovating and painting hospitality sites, restaurants and bars and preparing for summer. Hotels are opening, especially luxury boutique hotels, and it is not clear why this island is one of the two most expensive islands to vacation on in Europe, along with Ibiza - apparently the Rich and Pimes also attracted the middle class who pay the price. Literally.
More in Walla!
Lefkada and Preveza: Greece's Caribbean and the Perfect Coast
See full article >
During the spring, Greeks work to renovate and paint the hospitality sites. Souvenir shop on the island (Photo: Ziv Reinstein)
The white color in the streets is one of the symbols of Mykonos (Photo: Ziv Reinstein)
Condoms in the room
But it turns out that in Mykonos you can vacation in an intimate, romantic and prestigious segment without spending a fortune. For example, the Amyth of Mykonos Hotel by the Cypriot hotel chain Thanos, and it was the first hotel that opened in Greece last month and hosted me at the beginning of May. Located above the former fishing village of Agios Stefanos, this adults-only hotel has been renovated over three years and built on the basis of an older hotel. Thanos has renovated 17 rooms and suites, including soaps from the prestigious Acqua di Parma brand, snacks, cards and even a pack of condoms. Nonetheless, for adults only.
Some rooms have a private pool, others a jacuzzi, but in the large pool everyone can enjoy and eat and drink from the intimate hotel's wide selection of cocktails. The design of the hotel was entrusted to an architectural firm from Athens, which tried to combine the rustic look of Mykonos with modernity, which would create a relaxed homely feeling as soon as you entered.
"We didn't put room in the rooms for a big suitcase, because tourists usually don't come here with a lot of clothes, but with a trolley, and the women barely go dressed," explains Achilles, the manager, about how they thought about the design of the rooms. Price for a couple per night in summer - starts at $ 585, including breakfast. It's certainly not cheap, but if you compare to the $3,000 a night in some of the island's luxury hotels, you'll understand that it's relatively affordable accommodation.
More in Walla!
"The Arab invasion of Mykonos began," with the purchase of 200 bottles of champagne
See full article >
Some rooms have private pools. Suite at the Amyth of Mykonos Hotel (Photo: Ziv Reinstein)
You will find cocktails and a menu of dishes there. The pool at the hotel (Photo: Ziv Reinstein)
The design attempts to combine a rustic look of Mykonos with modernity. Hotel room (Photo: Ziv Reinstein)
Cats, lots of cats
Mykonos City, the old city on a bay with dozens of restaurants, bars, cafes and several nightclubs, has two entrances on foot – Fabrica and Mezzo – as no traffic is allowed in the alleys beyond that of vendors. The wandering itself is nice, many alleys that are easy to get confused, luxury boutiques and also the souvenir shops with the familiar magnets, hats and swimshirts all over Greece. There are many cats on the island and many adopt them and they are respected. Locals explain that this is due to the proliferation of snakes and lizards, and although a lizard in Greece is a sign of good luck, cats are still used to thin them.
A tour of the city brings the traveler through its streets to "Little Venice" - a beautiful romantic neighborhood whose houses are built in Venetian style - with restaurants on the waterfront, a fascinating view of six windmills that operated on the island until the 80s that became its symbol, and today have become a popular selfie and sunset spot.
The expensive bars and restaurants are on Matogianni Street, as well as two clubs for the wealthy,Bonbonniere and Astra, where a bottle of alcohol in champagne with ice will cost you hundreds of euros. Next to them there is a popular cabaret restaurant called "Leo". Another well-known bar on the street is Queen Of Mykonos.
If you fancy a local supermarket, and there is no Israeli whose soul did not desire one abroad, then the most famous writer on the island is Flora, who has been chosen several times as one of the best writers in Europe thanks to a rich selection of wines and many expensive delicacies, champagne, Japanese whiskey, champagne and products worth thousands of euros. And there's even a DJ playing inside in summer.
One of the highlights of the day. The sunset in Mykonos that brings everyone out (Photo: Ziv Reinstein)
6 windmills that have become a symbol of the island. "Little Venice" in Mykonos (Photo: Ziv Reinstein)
Entrance is on foot only. Mykonos City (Photo: Ziv Reinstein)
"Caesarea of Mykonos"
There are not many attractions in Mykonos, beyond sunbathing and walking around the city itself and eating, drinking, dancing. But if there's one must-do thing in the area, it's a cruise to Delos Island, the birthplace of Apollo and his twin sister Artemis, goddess of the hunt.
A half-hour boat ride from Mykonos on a large ferry (€60 per person, including entrance to the site, guide and audio kit) will bring you and hundreds of other tourists who leave for a three-hour visit (10:30 to 13:30) at Caesarea of Mykonos.
During the Hellenistic period (about 300 BC), a port was built on the island and people stopped there for trade. This period is the pride of the Greeks, to whom it is customary to attribute mainly the period of classical Greece (500 BC), is precisely in the Hellenistic period, since Delos is proof of the net Hellenistic period, that of Alexander the Great, and not a time jump between classical Greece and the Roman period. These are the 200 years of the Hellenists who gave Greece its name to this day - "Hellas" (Greece).
There are no people living in Delos, beyond the workers at the site, and according to researchers, up to 22,1873 people lived there in ancient times. In the fourth century AD, the island was abandoned, until archaeological excavations by French expeditions began in 1500, meaning that it had not been inhabited for about 5 years, so the finds are fascinating. For example, the house of Dionysus (god of wine), which has a peristyle courtyard (open with marble columns and Doric capitals) and in its center is a mosaic of Dionysus as a winged man sitting on a tiger, symbolizing that he conquered the tiger, that is, India - because Alexander the Great conquered Asia.
Another beautiful house is the house of Cleopatra, not the Egyptian, and the name means "glory of the father" in Greek - Cleo and Patra - who lived a century before the Egyptian queen of the Macedonian House of Ptolemy. In this house were found two statues, now replicas, of her and her husband with their names engraved on them. Also in the city, a pretty theater that seats about 000,200, but almost all of them are destroyed, at the foot of which runs a canal where water flowed. The island also contains a Samaritan synagogue probably dating from <> BC, as well as a temple to the Egyptian goddess Isis.
Half an hour sailing to an ancient and other world. The ferry from Mykonos Island to Delos Island (Photo: Ziv Reinstein)
Artifacts are more than 2000,<> years old. The House of Dionysus and the impressive mosaic (copy) in the center (Photo: Ziv Reinstein)
The splendor of the Hellenistic period. Marble columns with Doric capitals in Delos (Photo: Ziv Reinstein)
Mykonos is preparing for a summer full of partygoers, competing with other Greek islands for the attention of tourists around the world. But it is possible that in the field of romantic sunsets it will have no competition - after all, sunsets on the island are among the most beautiful in Greece, and this is indeed stiff competition in the island country. But those end-of-day minutes bring all the tourists into the city to grab a seat and wait for the sun to kiss into the water. Because even on the most expensive island in Greece, the sunset is still free.
- tourism
- World Travel
- Europe
- Greece
Tags
- Mykonos
- Greece
- Islands
- vacation
