YCGL - Sunday, October 15, 2023 - Leaving Mykonos☹️, On to Athens - Draft

Simple, Love It!!!  Frankly, my Dear, I wish I was headed directly home.  I’ll remember that next time I’m here.   I’m apparently not the only person that thinks that!  The population of the island in 2011 was 10,134. My tour operator said the most recent was 27,000.  And that increase is not due to natural population growth.  The rich are buying up the island

I left the ship a day early.  When we did that in Bergen, we went through a good half hour interview with Norwegian customs.  Here, they told me “don’t knock anyone over when you walk off the ship.”  Princess was the biggest pain.  They checked three times that my outstanding bill had been covered.   (No, I’m escaping into the Mykonos hills so I don’t have to pay for that last drink I had last night.  Which was automatically covered by my drink pass that allowed me up to 15 beverages per Day!  If I started at 6:00 in the morning, I’d never be able to drink 15 alcoholic beverages on a day.  Heck, I’d be back to sleep by 7:00am. (Without the Alcohol!)).  

We arrived early, so I had a couple of hours wait in before my tour started.  And then it started with a bang.  The owner/operator must drink Red Bull and Expresso for breakfast.  35ish, his grandfather owned a farm so he has property here. A ball of fire. Once he had collected the eight of us, we drove from the “new port” for the cruise ships to the beach bus station. Here, his associate took over.  He didn’t explain the switch or why, but we started walking into the old town.  

By law, all the houses on the island are to be two stories high, of a cube or block design, and painted white.  Or if it is built with local stone, it can be left the color of the rock…except those that aren’t. If the authorities catch a house being built outside those regulations, the builder will be forced to tear it down. If it gets completed before being caught, the owner can keep it. There are a surprising number of three and four story Large houses built out in the country side, especially around nice beaches.  I guess the building inspectors’ donkeys can’t walk that far.  

So all the old town are two story white, cubic buildings….except I don’t think there is a cube in the town, except maybe some of the churches. City design in “Little Venice” is based on protection, not a grid system.  The idea was that invaders would enter the city, in alleyways 4 to 8 feet wide, run into corners, T-intersections and get throughly lost while the home owners care attacking them with rocks and hot oil and later guns from the rooftops that the invaders couldn’t see.  It was very effective.   It still is!