Another ship’s tour. Sigh. But to be honest, it takes us to Delos island, the birthplace of Apollo and the religious center during the 1st millennium BC. We’ve always thought about going, but never actually made it. So we figured what the heck? How many times can you come to Mykonos and walk around or drive around? We’ve sort of done it all by now and this will be a refreshing change.

We’re in our tender first thing and heading off into the Mykonos town pier in no time. It’s windy and cold today though – sunny, but that wind. It cuts right through you and the water? I’m hoping for a better sailing experience than in Santorini!

Shore side, we meet our local guide who is adorable and funny and feisty and immediately starts an argument with the ferry guys because she wants to get on the ferry and they say it isn’t ready. This is going to be great! Seriously. We’re finally let aboard, after much grumbling, and then pushing off an out into the sea heading toward Delos. I’ve taken my pill, but it really isn’t all that bad. We stationed ourselves at the back of the boat right next to the open doors (with our masks on) which makes for a pleasant journey to the island.

Back on dry land, our guide escorts around the huge archeological site. It is just immense and so steeped in history – all of which she knows and none of which can I remember. Let’s just enjoy the sights, shall we? Ok, I’m joking, we do remember some things – like starting off in the “Theater” district of the complex, where there are residential houses along lanes that lead up to the huge theater. We stop at one of the largest homes where inside is a gorgeous floor mosaic, mostly intact, representing Dionysus, the god of the creative power that fertilizes nature.

Pressing on, we walk further into the theater district, passing other houses in various stages of restoration, more mosaics (like the dolphin in the Maison des Dauphins), windows with sills that remain intact, more columns than you can shake a stick at, the central cistern and more before taking a break at the theater to listen to more interesting history about the complex.

Walking back through the Theater district, trying to avoid the other huge tours coming through the complex, we head toward the Agora and the Temple of the Athenians. These temples were just massive in size – and while nothing but ruins and stones remain, they supposedly were many stories tall and towered above the rest of the complex. You can also see the marble stones used as steps up to the temples, and just how worn they are from all the foot traffic over the centuries. And as you can also see, the Agoras are absolutely huge and spread across an immense area.

We’re set free now for time on our own, which we use to wander over to the Terrace of the Lions and the House of Diadumenos at the far end of the complex.

Stopping briefly at the museum for a restroom break – closed except for the restrooms – we circle back through the wilderness side of the island and make our way to the pier to wait for the ferry to bring us back to Mykonos. Were quickly back and being escorted through a busy Mykonos town to the bus that will take us to Ano Mero for a monastery visit and lunch. We’ve been to the monastery, just last week, so we ask the guide where the lunch restaurant is located – right on the main square a few steps away – and tell her we will meet her there before wandering off to find a little pharmacy to pick up more cough drops. We’ve both developed sniffles and a cough – but we tested negative remember!!! – and want to make sure we take care of the post-nasal drip coughing before anyone gets worried.

Arriving at O’Bayyens taverna, they aren’t exactly ready for us, but as we wait, the guide comes with the rest of the group and the owner gets ready fairly quickly. Told you this guide was feisty! We sit with a lovely doctor from New Mexico who just quit his job working for the Indian Health Service and is going to work at the VA when he returns. This is his “break” trip. he’s wonderful company as we make our way through our really good, but really too much food lunch of mezes, Greek salad and tons of meat.

Lunch complete, we board the bus to return to Mykonos town for a walking tour. While on the bus though, we figured, you know, we don’t really want to do this whole walking tour thing. Lunch was so late (we were still eating at 2:30!) and we have an early dinner booked in Aqualina, and well…we decide to ditch the walking tour because really, we’ve been here about a bazillion times so what are we going to see we haven’t seen a million times?

It all worked out well, we caught the next tender back to ship, then just hung out on the balcony, napping in the lounge chairs (well, I napped), then commenced our normal afternoon and evening routine of gym, dinner and then balcony again because you can’t beat the weather now – a fabulous 72° with a nice cool wind and just beautiful. Why not?

As lovely a night as it is for us up on our balcony – it is not as lovely for the poor guys trying to bring the last tender in. The wind, while nice and breezy on our protected balcony is causing havoc with the water and the little tender. They keep trying and trying and trying to bring it aboard – but have to abort a bunch of times. Finally – after probably 45 minutes or so – they get close enough to the ship that they can slam down the hooks for the winch (we can hear how hard the hooks hit the tender all the way up here), wrestle them into place and finally lift the tender up. Phew! We were thinking these guys might be getting an unexpected overnight in Mykonos if this didn’t work soon!

After that it was all peace and loveliness as we sail away from Mykonos on our way to Patmos.