When planning this part of our trip, I knew that November would be the 'off season' in the Greek islands. Our plan was to spend some time in Athens, fly to Santorini, ferry to Naxos, ferry to Mykonos, and then fly or ferry from Mykonos to Turkey. It was so hard to decide which islands to go to and we had a hard time passing up Crete. I looked every week at the ferry schedules, and they appeared for Sept, and then eventually for Oct, but the November schedules didn't appear.
I kept reading things that said "ferries were less frequent in November-March" and I eventually learned that the ferry from Greece to Turkey wouldn't be possible after October, creating a need to fly. So we booked flights and accommodation and pieced together our itinerary before the remainding island ferry schedules were available.
Thankfully the ferry schedule appeared eventually and the ferry from Santorini to Naxos worked out well. But unfortunately there were no ferries from Naxos to Mykonos operating in the winter.
I puzzled together an alternative itinerary, buying ferry tickets from Naxos-Paros-Syros. We had to spend the night in Syros, and then a ferry from Syros-Mykonos the next day. I was grateful it would work, even if it was more effort. The Naxos-Paros-Syros ferry only ran 2x per week, so we shifted around some things to spend less time in Naxos and the extra night in Syros.
Our ferry from Naxos-Paros went fine, and then we had about an hour in the port of Paros. It seemed that a Tuesday night in Paros in November was a pretty lively time on that island - more going on there than there was in Naxos! Perhaps that was only true because the soccer matches were on tv.
Then the weather shifted and things started to get windy. Our second ferry from Paros to Syros was somewhat rocky and crowded, but we were able to watch a FIFA soccer match on the boat, and we got there fine.
We arrived in Syros and made it to our guest house, which was about 400m uphill away from the port. Lila's Guesthouse - lovely hosts, a nice place, and a suite big enough for 5 people. We had a fun breakfast there, going back for seconds and thirds of the yummy yogurt/granola/juice.
In the morning it was VERY rainy and windy. I was quite relieved when our ferry (although delayed) still made the sail and we got safely from Syros to Mykonos. It wasn't even tippy on board, and our family made it through all of these 4 ferry rides without any sickness! Hurray!
We decided to rent a car on Mykonos also, so we got the car and drove to our air bnb. We were very thankful that we were safely inside our place before the rain picked up again, so we could have a cozy night inside our place. We got groceries from an open and decent-sized supermarket and made an early US Thanksgiving dinner together.
The Cyclades get 300 days of sunshine a year, so when we woke the next morning, it was beautiful and sunny. We were able to go out for a run, dip in the pool, and relax in the sun. We drove to the island's lighthouse and the historic windmills.
Unfortunately the ferries are not running to the archaelogical island of Delos throughout the winter, which was our big reason for coming to Mykonos. But we still enjoyed the nearby beach and this family time together in this lovely place. We had plenty of downtown and some mixed weather.
We did enjoy walking around the main part of downtown and "Little Italy", althgouth most visitors probably have a different experience than we did - most every shop was closed and there were hardly any people on our visit.
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| Picking up trash on the beach |
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| "Marina Princess" |
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| 3 historic wells next door to Louis Vitton |
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| A huge $320 bottle of liquor! |
