Mykonos Trip
Our next weekend’s destination was Mykonos, Greece! We had booked this trip towards the beginning of the summer and had been looking forward to it ever since. It definitely did not disappoint, and I am still reminiscing over the weekend.
Our Itinerary
Friday
The cheapest and best flight we could take from Rome to Mykonos happened to be at 4:05am on Friday morning - definitely was an early start! The flight is less than two hours, and with the one hour time difference we were in Mykonos by 7am. Unfortunately this weekend happened to be a rare extremely windy weekend for that time of year, with 30 mph winds, which we were not expecting. At first we were definitely annoyed about this but we still ended up having an incredible weekend. We took a taxi from the airport to nearby where our AirBnB was in Mykonos Town/Little Venice. We knew we couldn’t check in until 1pm, so we had plenty of time to kill. We walked around for a bit and found a cute restaurant on the water called Raya for breakfast. Once the shops opened at 10am, we walked around those. Mykonos has amazing shopping, ranging from cute beachy boutiques to high end stores like Louis Vuitton, and you could easily spend hours browsing all of them. Some of my favorites where I purchased were Salt Boutique (gorgeous and unique bags), Lipstick Stories (handmade and customizable jewelry), and Amnesia (slightly more high end boutique). After 1pm we checked into our AirBnb, which was called Maisonette Coco. It was so cute, spotlessly clean, and in a super central location right near town. Once we checked in we napped and relaxed for the rest of the afternoon since none of us had really slept the night before. Then we got ready and headed out to find a cute restaurant for dinner. There are a ton of options, but we ended up choosing Mamalouka, which was amazing. After dinner, we went to a cocktail bar called Bonbonniere for a drink. That night we went to Skandinavian Bar.
Saturday
On Saturday we grabbed pastries and coffee for breakfast at Veneti Bakery. We had been planning to ATV around the island on Saturday, but when we tried to rent them we ran into the issue of not having bike licenses and running the risk of an expensive fine if we got stopped by the police. (In hindsight we probably would have been fine as we didn’t see any cops and a lot of other tourists rented ATVs who likely did not all have bike licenses.) Instead we ended up renting a topless Jeep (for only €100 total for the day) and were so glad we did. It was so fun to cruise around the island in it and take in the incredible views. It was still windy on Saturday, but thankfully sunnier. We drove out to Armenistis Lighthouse then stopped for lunch at Souvlaki Story (which is a chain so probably not extremely authentic Greek food, but so good). We also went to Tropicana Beach Club for a cocktail. That night we found another restaurant in town for dinner, however unfortunately it didn’t end up being very good. We got ice cream at Kayak which was delicious. That night we were planning to go to the nightclub Void, however once we got there we were informed that it was closed - not completely sure if just temporarily or indefinitely. The whole town was buzzing, so we walked around to find another place. We actually ended up going back to Bonbonniere, which turns into a club at night, and it was so much fun.
Sunday
On Sunday we rented our Jeep again. We tried to go the famous Windmills, however parking and traffic trying to just get into the area was very congested so we gave up. There are individual windmills all around, so we just ended up walking up to one later for pictures. We drove to Ornos Beach, which is really pretty and has a lot of cute restaurants on the water. We had lunch at Porto’s Ornos. There’s not much shopping around there, but there is a cute boutique called Go Ammos (connected to the Ammos Hotel) where I bought some fun earrings. You are able to rent beach chairs at Ornos, but we had wanted to go back to Tropicana. We drove back to Tropicana and rented beach chairs (they were €25 for two chairs and an umbrella) and lay out at the beach for the afternoon. It was still windy, but it was really nice to get in a beach day. Once we got back we watched the stunning sunset and after two nights of more expensive dinners, we decided we wanted some cheap gyros. There a ton of gyro shops around town, but more casual and not sit down so ended up going back to Souvlaki Story, to the location in town. Afterwards we got yummy authentic Greek yogurt and went back to the shops where we had been eyeing things and made purchases. (Most of the stores stay open until midnight, which is very convenient!) Then we went back to our AirBnb and got our luggage together as we had another 4am flight!
Overall, it was an amazing and unforgettable trip and one of my favorite weekends ever. I will most definitely be back!
Tips
What to Wear: I mainly wore dresses, skirts, and sandals. I had to pack light since I would have to pay to check my Away suitcase in, so I ended up fitting everything into my Longchamp shoulder bag and another similarly sized beach bag. I wore pretty much everything I brought, except for a few tops and denim skirts. Because of the wind it was colder that weekend than it is usually is in September, so thankfully I had brought a denim jacket too. While it is beachy, everyone in Mykonos is very glamorous so I would recommend going slightly fancier than you would for a regular beach vacation, especially for night outfits.
Budget: Since it is so touristy, Mykonos is definitely expensive, especially coming from Rome where entrees and drinks are relatively cheap. Entrees at our fancier dinners were around €24-30, and cocktails can be €14-17. Factor in shopping and the other activities you want to do, and it definitely adds up. However, I definitely thought it was worth it for this trip. But if you are budget conscious, €4 gyros are always a good call!
Plan Ahead: Originally we had wanted to take a ferry to Santorini for a day trip. We actually couldn’t even have done this on Saturday because the ferries did not end up running with the wind. When we went to inquire about taking one on Sunday, the travel agent almost laughed at us and explained that it would not be worth it for a day trip; we would need at least a night or two there. It makes sense because ferries are expensive, about €60-70 each way. At least we figured that out, and unfortunately ours was a pretty short trip, but if I go back for a longer time in the future I would definitely like to island hop.
Water: Our AirBnb host kindly informed us not to drink the tap water there, so we were constantly picking up bottles of water at stores when we were out and about!
