Athens and Mykonos Islands, Greece ( 8-12 April 07)

My upcoming trip to Greece was really one of the trips that I was seriously looking forward to especially after hearing of the amazing stories of the Greek Islands and of Athens; where the birth of civilization and democracy started.

Prior to the trip, I had planned to visit both the Acropolis in Athens and one of the islands during our 2 day stay, therefore, the moment we reached our hotel in the morning, we inquired of the ferry timings and accommodation available at Mykonos Island. As soon as I reached an agreement of the cost, accommodation and ferry timings with the travel agent (The apt word would be bargaining ), I managed to convince three of my workmates to join me for a little excursion to Mykonos for the night before departing back to Athens in the evening the next day.

After a little rest and some lunch, all of us headed of to the Acropolis. Along the way, we trudged through the shopping area, Plaka, bustling with tourists and locals from all walks of life. The shops consisted mainly ubiquitous retail outlets such as H&M, Loccitane,etc with the sidewalks lined with street peddlers selling everything from seeshas, Greek paraphernalia to unique puppets. Similarly to Italy, the street floors were of white marble stone, and once in a while, you would stumble upon ancient ruins amongst the modern edifice of the city. Unfortunately for us, as it was the long Easter holiday, all the shops were close, therefore we could only literally window shop there.

After getting lost through the maze-like streets and of course, detouring into the endless rows of little shops selling Greek souvenirs, we finally reached Acropolis to find out that the place was closed at 3 pm due to the Easter holidays! Therefore, all we could do was to take pictures outside the historical site and to savour the atmosphere of the rest of the city before heading of to the jetty.

The journey to Mykonos took 3 1/2 hours, and upon reaching the island, it was already nightfall. As agreed by our travel agent, we would obtain complimentary transfer from the jetty to the hotel. Unfortunately, there was no transport waiting for us when we alighted the ferry. The scenery at night was certainly breathtaking, however, the experience of getting stranded in an unknown area plus the constant gust of wind blowing at our faces at the temperature 14-16 Celsius was not something we enjoyed. Using the auto-roaming function of my mobile phone, I immediately took out our travel documents and called the hotel to pick us up after roaming the jetty for about 20 minutes.

Note: If you happened to travel to a country for work and decided to book a tour via the hotel/travel agent nearby in the last minute, there are a few things that you need to do:

1.) Get all documentations, especially addresses of phone numbers of your hotel and transport ( i.e. airline/ferry/speedboat) in case there are complications. In my case, they forgot to fetch us at the jetty.

2.) Name card of the travel agent. According to our travel agent, the tickets back from Mykonos to Athens would be provided by the hotel. However, the hotel was not aware of this and no tickets was bought even on the early morning of the day we departed! Luckily, we checked earlier and with the aid of our travel documents and the name card, the hotel managed to get a ferry ticket for us to go back to Athens.

3.) Don't totally leave the travel arrangements to the travel agents especially if you are pressed for time. Always check if the documents are ready and whether your transport is waiting for you. Do note that things do go wrong and miscommunication do happen, just that you don't want be the one who suffers from it!

Back to Mykonos: Upon checking into the our seaside hotel at Platy Gialos, we decided to head down to city, Hora to check out the night life available. Even at 9.30 pm, the shops were filled with people with eateries and night clubs opened till dawn. The night scene at the waterfront was simply stunning, the crashing waves onto the shore reflected bright azure upon reflection of the city lights.

The next morning was spent savouring our breakfast whilst embracing the crisp morning air, cloudless sky, white sandy beach and azure waters at our seaside hotel. As soon as finished our meal, we headed out to the city only to be greeted by a row white windmills and the sight of houses literally suspended over the sea (Dubbed 'Little Venice').

The rest of the city was filled with gleaming white cubical houses (All not more than 2 storeys high and with colours painted only at its doors, windows, railings and stairs) and never ending white narrow alleys. At the waterfront, sight of the innumerable white houses at the hills was simply breathtaking; even the ships and boats were white based!

The morning was spent roaming around the white filled alleys, enjoying the sights and scenery of Hora. We finally ended the day at a cafe (Near Little Venice) overlooking the sea and enjoyed a round of beer and crepes before heading back to the hotel.

In the evening, we took the ferry back to Athens and safely reached our hotel. The trip to Athens/Mykonos Island was definitely something to remember and we hope to go there again in the future!