Greece Trip - Day 6

July 1, 2009 – Mykonos

This morning we took a trip to the Island of Delos to visit the famous archaeological site – it was the birthplace of Apollo and Artemis. Delos was a very important Island; it was a holy sanctuary and people travelled from all over to visit this mythological place. The island is covered in ruins, parts of temples, amphitheatres, roads, houses, wells and more. One famous statue on the island is the ‘column with phallus at the Stoivadeion’ – it is a column with a man’s genitals on top – the two balls and the shaft (although the shaft is broken off)!! So of course, we had to hunt down this piece of art and have our photo taken with it! It is quite obvious through this and other artefacts - including statues, frescos and artwork - that the Greek were quite obsessed with sex. You can even buy a calendar that has ancient pictures of sexual positions on them – very interesting 

We visited the amphitheatre, House of Dionysus, the Terrace of Lions and also the museum. While we were wandering around we noticed an underground water system all over the island. There were steps leading down to wells or water fountains where people went to collect water and the underground water system could be seen all across the Island. Some of the mosaic floors could still be seen in its original location, others had been moved to the museum for restoration. There were little lizards running over the marble and across the pathway, they were very cute and they are also virtually the only inhabitants of the island.

We then took a ferry back to Mykonos and I wandered around parts of the port and town before heading back to Paradise Beach. I ended up meeting up with most of the group waiting for the bus to take us to the beach, so that was good – we could spend the afternoon together. We found a posy along a busy section of the beach, under the umbrellas on nice sun lounges, a few of the group headed further up the beach were you didn’t have to pay for the umbrellas and lounges and had room to lay your towels on the sand. A popular game at the beach in Greece seems to be a tennis type game with wooden paddles, as I have seen people of all ages playing it each time I have been to the beach. It was nice and relaxing watching the dive boats come in and out, and the small boat taxiing people between this beach and another beach that is only accessible by water, watching some great looking people stroll past and going for a quick swim every now and then.

About 5pm music started pumping from the nearby Tropicana bar so we packed up our beach bags and headed up to join in the fun. There were two chicks dancing in swimmers and platform shoes on two podiums and a guy in the middle dancing too. The tables were full of people in their swimmers dancing and drinking and the crowds were getting thicker. After a few minutes a guy with a microphone came to the podium to get the crowd going – he was only wearing a g-string that had an elephant on the front – get the picture??? The things he was saying were really quite crass but it seemed to get the crowd up and dancing and having fun – we found it hilarious. We stayed there for quite a while and then decided to go back to have a shower, get changed, have some dinner and come back later.

About 11pm we headed back to the bus stop to go back to the beach, we then found out that the Tropicana Bar closes at 10pm and it is a Ministry of Sound Nightclub at the beach that opens at 11pm, so we paid for entry to the club and headed back to the beach. The club was very cool – it had an open ceiling, a large pool in the centre, lounges and chairs all over, large LCD screens and a stage. We bumped into the brother and sister duo from the previous night at the club, so we caught up on the day’s events with them. The club had a light display that was a huge outline of a guy dancing projected across the nearby mountain. The club didn’t start to get busy until around 2am and they played mainly electro music, which I don’t mind – I can dance to anything, but they others had had enough, so we all headed back to the town.