Greece is a country of islands and the vast majority of them are uninhabited.  We would visit three islands in two days.  Santorini was next, but on this day, we visited Ancient Delos and Mykonos. 

We rode a ferry to Delos, an island well positioned geographically to become a trade center in the Mediterranean. It was a prosperous trading port from 3000 BC and had a population of 20,000 people.  

According to Greek mythology, Delos was the birthplace of Apollo and his twin sister Artemis, the children of Zeus and Leto.  Because of Hera’s displeasure at Zeus’ philandering, Leto had to search for a place where she could give birth to her twins since Hera ordered all lands to deny her shelter.  (Excuse me…Was this pregnancy Leto’s fault?) As the site of Apollo’s birth, people from around the world came to Delos to pay homage.   

Eventually, a regional king tried to fight the Romans and it went badly for Delos and its citizens.

The island was abandoned for many generations. There are cats living on the still uninhabited Delos so maybe they have been on the island all along.

Since 1873 there has been excavation on the island and it was declared a Unesco World Heritage Site in 1990.

With background absorbed, we were ready to explore Delos with our guide and with the aid of Augmented Reality Software tablets. Our tour description said “AR combines the camera’s content with a virtual one.  AR essentially enables you to simply point the tablet’s camera at various locations of the site and view them in their original form, as they once stood thousands of years ago.”

Well, not so much. At best the tablet had interactive software that allowed you to choose from a menu showing what expansion information you would like to look at.  

While we were getting instruction on the tablet, it started to rain. Our guide said it never rains in the Greek Islands- but we had a storm that afternoon!

Most everyone retreated to the visitor center to wait it out.

One of the island cats had the bench and no one ever made it move.  We just left it alone and stood.

Eventually the rain lessened so most in our group took off to explore Delos. With the rain, the Augmented Reality Software was not really usable. We were just trying to see as much as we could between showers.  

We followed our guide and at one point she asked us what we wanted to do. People said just keep on. She was a good sport and we all got very wet.

I don’t honestly remember what we saw. I couldn’t take notes because of the rain.

I took very few pictures and then when I did, the shutter wouldn’t close. I gave up taking pictures and eventually gave up the tour. I was soaked and went back to the ferry to wait.

Randy kept on with the guide.  The sun came out and his clothes were the type that dried out quickly. These lions are from the Terrace of Lions.

Tours were supposed to come and go throughout the day – but now everyone who had been there during the storm just wanted to go.  The tour guides ordered in a second ferry because there were way too many of us on Delos to go back at once.    (The tours that came after us appeared to have a lovely afternoon!)

We motored to Mykanos and the sun was out. It was lovely but, unfortunately, I was still very wet and cold. The choice was to find a warm, dry sweatshirt or go back to the ship.

The stores by the port just had souvenirs and T-shirts.  I wanted a sweatshirt.  I didn’t have to love it, I just didn’t want to hate it.

It took a bit of searching through the labyrinth of little paths!

My sweatshirt was finally purchased and here I am in front of the iconic Mykonos windmills.

The first windmills on the island were built by the Venetians in the 16th century when grain production and milling were an income source. 

We wandered around the port area and enjoyed the views and the famous white buildings.

We enjoyed the rest of our afternoon in Mykonos and returned to the ship just after it began to get dark.

My camera mostly died on Delos on September 28, 2023. Randy tried to dry it out and coax it along but it was pretty much done. It had been around the country and around the world for many years. We would have to use our iPhone cameras going forward.

Next up: Santorini