{"id":14700,"date":"2019-07-17T09:00:56","date_gmt":"2019-07-17T15:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/?p=14700"},"modified":"2019-07-17T09:00:50","modified_gmt":"2019-07-17T15:00:50","slug":"vacation-2019-part-four-mykonos-and-chania","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2019\/07\/vacation-2019-part-four-mykonos-and-chania.html","title":{"rendered":"Vacation 2019, part four: Mykonos and Chania"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Day 8:\u00a0 Mykonos.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s all about expectations, in the end.\u00a0 I had low expectations for Myknonos, which was described as over-touristed every bit as much as Santorini, and full of rich people.\u00a0 But it was nice, and the streets were not nearly so jammed as I had expected, and once you leave the main thoroughfares they were rather quiet.\u00a0 Despite the description of it as an enormous resort (which was likely more true of the actual resorts and beaches, which require a taxi\/water taxi\/bus\/shuttle bus to get to) it felt very charming.\u00a0 The houses were white, but not universally with blue accents, but with various colors (and red rather than blue domes on the churches), and there were flowers everywhere, and at one point I wasn\u2019t sure if the floral smell was coming from those flowers or from the women\u2019s boutiques lining that particular street.\u00a0 And even though there was no particular reason for this, it felt like a city people lived in more so than Oia.\u00a0 There were a few small museums (the standard fare \u2013 a maritime museum, a folklore museum) but we didn\u2019t do more than walk around, then walk out of town enough to reach a beach at which my husband got wet while my son and I whined about the heat, and walk back \u2014 but, heck, for all the statements of \u201cplayground for the rich and famous\u201d we had gyros for EUR 3.50 each and inexpensive gelato at a place on the harbor with free wifi to boot.\u00a0 (Update on the phone:\u00a0 the display was very wonky but not completely nonfunctional, though for the rest of the trip my husband used my and my son\u2019s phones for camera purposes \u2014 and neither of us had cellular service, though my husband had arranged for such since it\u2019s a work phone.)<\/span><\/p>\n

Some practicalities: the port was a couple miles out of town, but the cruise line ran free shuttle buses all day.\u00a0 We also had a full day in port, but were not so ambitious here, so we didn\u2019t rush out as soon as possible, and came back to the ship mid-afternoon-ish rather than staying as late as possible.\u00a0 One activity that was also in the \u201cnice to have\u201d list was a side trip to Delos, an archeological site of major significance, but that would have been a fairly time-intensive endeavor, so we didn\u2019t.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"
the iconic windmills<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"
windmills close up<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"
yeah, I couldn\u2019t figure out if the windmills were actually used as such; they seemed to be private homes, and seemed to be rebuilt periodically as needed, and this one is under renovation<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"
the harbor<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"
more harbor<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"
the rich folks\u2019 part of Mykonos<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"
a side street<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"
another side street<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"
because real people live in Mykonos, too<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"
no longer the blue domes of Santorini<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"
plus, the interior.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Day 9:\u00a0 Chania (Crete)<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

This was a stop that had fairly odd timing \u2013 from 7 AM to noon.\u00a0 The next day\u2019s stop was only beginning at 1:00; so this was basically a way of avoiding a full-day sea day.\u00a0 It was fine, though, except that we had to get up early, and we figured we\u2019d take our showers in the afternoon after we got back.\u00a0 The port was, once again, out of town, but only by a couple miles (though those miles took a long time to cover), and there was a city bus that charged EUR 1.50 or something like that and travelled back and forth at regular intervals.\u00a0 The city itself isn\u2019t particularly big or famous and I really don\u2019t know how many people just stayed on board or even took the alternate bus to the beach.\u00a0 (Once again, even though it was in the morning, it was hot.)\u00a0 The city did not have the white plastered look to it; it had a Venetian history prior to its conquest by the Turks.\u00a0 The streetscape at the harbor was colorful and elsewhere it had more of the tan Italian look to it.\u00a0 We walked through the streets and alleyways, and wanted to go to the archeological museum (described in the guidebook as small but nice and inexpensive, so it certainly seemed like something easily accessible despite the short length of time we had), but that day turned out to be its closed day.\u00a0 Then we circled around and went back up the main shopping drag where we found a bench in the shade and my husband found a free wifi access from a nearby restaurant and used my phone to log into his e-mail to send e-mails to his colleagues that he wouldn\u2019t be able to be reached.\u00a0 (Yes, in Day 8 I said that we had free wifi the day before, too; the difference was that in Mykonos, my husband thought his phone would work, and merely be difficult to use, but the next day he concluded it just wasn\u2019t going to work well enough at all until he got it fixed.)\u00a0 And while he did that, my son and I picked out a t-shirt for my middle son, one with a Sparta\/molon labe theme (he tends to say that he doesn\u2019t like tourist t-shirts or other souvenirs from places he actually hasn\u2019t been, so I figured that since Sparta doesn\u2019t actually exist at all, this might be more acceptable).<\/span><\/p>\n

A couple items of note about Chania (pronounced, for what it\u2019s worth, with the German\/Hebrew \u201cch\u201d at the front):<\/span><\/p>\n

There are stray cats all over the place.\u00a0 Yes, for whatever reason, we\u2019ve got feral cats right here in my neighborhood (though, it strikes me, fewer right now), but they were all over the place.\u00a0 Is this a sign of the town\u2019s poverty despite the charming Old Town?\u00a0 Or is it just one of those things?\u00a0 You could see that people left cat food out for them here and there.<\/span><\/p>\n

The city, unlike mainland Greece, was under Turkish control with increasing degrees of autonomy until the 20th century, and there are various monuments to heroes of the resistance, and the cathedral of the town has a bit of English-language history posted, which says that during the long occupation, the building was repurposed by the authorities, including as a soap factory.<\/span><\/p>\n

The main shopping drag was nice, though a mix of tourist shops and actual stores for locals.\u00a0 You know what I liked best?\u00a0 There were three separate fabric stores, plus a yarn store \u2014 which suggests that Cretan women still engage in handicrafts other than the scrapbooking and jewelry making which appears to be 90% of JoAnn\u2019s business right now.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"
the Chania harbor<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"
a streetscape<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

another streetscape<\/p>\n

\"\"
a resistance hero<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"
and another one (no, I can\u2019t read the Greek)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"
stray cat<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"
another stray cat<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"
one of three fabric stores!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

and, finally \u2013 a small item that interested me, a religious good store right on the main shopping drag; these were also all over the place compared to here.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Day 8:\u00a0 Mykonos. It\u2019s all about expectations, in the end.\u00a0 I had low expectations for Myknonos, which was described as over-touristed every bit as much as Santorini, and full of rich people.\u00a0 But it was nice, and the streets were not nearly so jammed as I had expected, and once you leave the main thoroughfares […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1272],"class_list":["post-14700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-vacation-2019"],"yoast_head":"\nVacation 2019, part four: Mykonos and Chania<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Day 8:\u00a0 Mykonos. 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