Mykonos & Delos

We are now on the island of Mykonos, our last stop before heading back to Athens, and then to Sicily! We were hoping to get some shelter from the winds that plagued us on Naxos, but were told on our arrival that Mykonos is the "island of the winds". So is Delos, it seems. Re-reading Lonely Planet, I have learned that the Cyclades are "exposed to the northwesterly meltemi winds... a fierce wind". Too true. Wellingtonians will be at home.

We arrived yesterday, and spent the avo poking around the shops in the now-familiar narrow streets of towns in the Cyclades. The opening hours around here are utterly bizarre. Museums close at 3, banks close at 2, the pharmacies open at 5... We've both had a nasty flu (not bird flu, mind you), so we wanted to get some cold medicine. All the pharmacies were closed, but they all had cryptic clues pointing towards another pharmacy that was going to be open at night. We followed all the signs around, asked several local shop owners, killed time having dinner, and finally found the single open pharmacy. Very peculiar.

Anyway, we decided there wasn't much to do on Mykonos so today we caught a small ferry to nearby Delos, the sacred island of ancient Greece. Inhabited since 3,000BC, it became the centre of Apollo worship in 900BC (the God, and his twin sister Artemis, were believed to be born here). Since then the island became a religious centre, and eventually a strong trading power. See Mum's notes for more info!

The whole island is an open-air archaeology site, and you can spend hours wandering the ruins, and chancing across interesting things. The paths are strewn with ancient pottery shards (you walk on them) and there are also the usual wildflowers and colourful skinks/lizards in abundance. Most interesting are the lion statues overlooking the scared lake (drained in the 20s after a malaria outbreak) and the lovely floor mosaics. There are many in the ruins with geometric designs, but the more interesting ones (ie. people and animals) have been harvested for the museums.

The little museum was also interesting, but some rooms were roped off. No apparent reason that we could see, but we're getting used to the random way of doing things that the Greeks have.

NZ WATCH: We went to a small naval museum which, apart from having a globe on which New Zealand was present, had a model of the Endeavour! Very impressive - less so the write up, which referred to "New Jeeland". Oh well.