Mykonos Town

So there we were for the fourth day in a row - asking the waiter to pour another coffee and another orange juice and wondering when we would have enough energy to actually stand up and walk to the breakfast buffet. This island life - no, this island lethargy - is getting so pervasive that the night before we had been too lazy to go to dinner.

Ah, the tranquility!

And then LK leaned forward as she does when she has bad news to tell me. "I think we need to do something today. We need to leave the hotel and go to town."

I quickly agreed, figuring I could moan and groan a bit after breakfast, complain that my ankle was sore and my allergies made me wheezy. She would defer her action plan to another day, as she has done every other day this week.

I still don't know how we ended up standing in the full sun waiting for our taxi an hour later, but I think we both felt a vague sense that it would be embarrassing to spend 10 days on an island and not know anything about it other than that the hotel pool has a nice bar.

It was sunny and warm. Which means it was exactly the same as it has been every other day of our time on the island. This day, however, had the additional benefit of enabling my shorts to dry more quickly after the wild ride to town.

All the buildings on Greek islands are white, of course, but architecturally they break into three distinct categories: shops, bars with no food and bars that serve food.

There are apparently only a few tourist must-do's in Mykonos Town - see the famous windmills on the hill above the harbor, check out the famous pelican that wanders around town, eat at the famous Nico's Taverna. Oh yes, and shop.

The island is just now bracing for the beginning of the true tourist season in a few weeks, but when Athens went on strike this week a couple of cruise ships came here as alternatives. There was a sense that people were feeling a tad overworked for this time of the year. Some of the shops celebrated the current economic turmoil that is threatening their nation by having sales - but then again, why am I surprised.

LK continues to be on her very best behavior, making me very concerned that she's holding back for something major once we hit the States around the time of her very significant birthday. She went into a jewelry store but bought only a souvenir of our visit. Scary.

We were walking near the ferry dock checking out the town's pet pelican when we heard our names being shouted. Sure enough, there was someone from our cruise sitting at a sidewalk table having a beer. Which was a pretty good idea in the hot sun.

After that, we wandered the square for a few moments until LK found a souvenir bracelet (I cannot get her it start wearing fridge magnets, which would really help the budget) and then we realized it had been a full three hours since breakfast so hotfooted it to Nico's Taverna.

This is more or less like going to the restaurant that every tourist goes to when they come to a tourist town. But at least the food was good and not very expensive. And the beer was icy.

LK started out with lentil soup laced with lots of vinegar and I had fish soup with half a lemon squeezed into it. Yum.

For the main course, I opted for the a cold lobster salad - really tasty. LK ignored the fact that the sun was beating down and went for classic Greek - a lamb shank in what was called a lemon-egg sauce. As the Beatles once sang, "It's so heavy." But very good, she insisted.

After that bit of excess we decided we needed a bit of a wander before heading back to the hotel.

Fortunately, the town is so small that the bit was even shorter than I had imagined, and I was back the room under a cool shower by 4pm.

The day in town did tire us out, though. We didn't even go down for drinks at the pool bar but opted for in-room drinking. No thought of dining after all that food earlier in the day.

And today we have pledged to resist any urges to leave the hotel. It's OK to get active once in a while, but we wouldn't want to miss afternoon drinks at the pool two days in a row.