Mykonos

Mykonos is, for better or worse, what Greek-island glamour has become: the yachts at Psarou, the beach clubs at Paradise, the prices in July and August. It does this well. If you expect a fishing village, it is the wrong island, so choose accordingly.

The town saves it. Mykonos Town was laid out as a maze on purpose, to confuse pirates, and the lanes still work that way. Narrow whitewashed passages open into squares of bougainvillea, doors are painted with leftover ship paint, and the five surviving sixteenth-century windmills stand in a line on the ridge above the harbour. Walk it slowly in the morning, before the cruise day-trippers land.

Most travellers do not realise that ancient Mykonos mattered because of the island next to it. Delos, a 40-minute boat ride from the old port, was the sacred birthplace of Apollo and Artemis and one of the main religious sites of the ancient Mediterranean. The whole island is an open-air ruin and a UNESCO site. Half a day there is the simplest cure for Mykonos fatigue.

Some practical notes. Hotel prices peak from late June to August and stay high into September. The wind matters too. The Meltemi can keep small boats in port for days at a time, which can spoil a plan to visit Delos. The quiet end of the island is the north, around Fokos and Agios Sostis, for guests who want sand without loudspeakers.

House Notes

  1. Arrival

    A helicopter from Athens to Mykonos takes 40 minutes with IFLY, AEGEANVIP or Ariston. Slots at JMK, the island’s airport, are fully booked early in the year, so the workaround is to land in Athens and fly the rest by helicopter, bypassing the airport entirely. Private helipads at hotels and villas accept landings with written authorisation given before the day of travel.

  2. The address

    Kalesma at Aleomandra suits a hillside villa stay, and Cavo Tagoo above Hora has cave-cut suites and a cliff-edge infinity pool. Bill & Coo on Megali Ammos is the more intimate choice, Santa Marina at Ornos suits guests with families and has a private beach, and Belvedere on the Hora ridge has the central position above the harbour.

  3. The kitchens

    Matsuhisa Mykonos, Nobu’s only Greek address, is on the rooftop above the harbour; order the black cod and the rock-shrimp salad. Spilia, cut into the rocks at Kalafatis, has tables hanging over the sea. Hippie Fish on Agios Ioannis has a table at the sea’s edge, looking west towards Delos.

  4. Delos, on private terms

    The site on Delos closes from 1 December to 31 March. From 1 April to 30 October it opens from 8am to 8pm, and in November from 8am to 4pm; public ferries run from the old port from 1 April to 30 November, with the morning departure at 10am. A private speedboat or yacht gives a visitor the temples alone before the day boats land.

  5. The quiet tavernas

    On the north coast, Fokos has one taverna, Fokos Taverna, in business since 1999 and paid in cash. Kiki’s at Agios Sostis stands off-grid above the beach, with no sign, no phone and no booking, and stays open until the food runs out. Kapari, west of Hora, is one of the few beaches left totally undeveloped, and the unhurried go there for the sunset.

  6. Aegean Maritime Museum

    The Aegean Maritime Museum was founded in 1983 by the Mykonian shipowner George M. Drakopoulos, in a 19th-century house on Tria Pigadia square in Hora. It holds models of Greek vessels from pre-Minoan to modern times, shipping documents and navigational instruments, and the 1890 Armenistis Lighthouse stands in the garden. It is the serious counterweight to the beach clubs.

  7. Panagia Tourliani

    The monastery stands at Ano Mera, the geographic centre of the island; it was founded in 1542 and restored from 1757 to 1767. Its wooden iconostasis, the carved screen before the altar, was made by Florentine artists in 1775 and runs 10.20 metres across all three aisles, and the bell tower is marble. The catholicon, the main church, is a three-aisled Byzantine cruciform under a dome.

  8. Nammos and Scorpios

    Nammos at Psarou is the place for lunch and the afternoon; daybeds come through the concierge, never at the door, and in August they are booked two weeks ahead. Scorpios at Paraga is the music-led alternative, set apart from the rest by its sunset ritual. Both run a yacht tender service in season, though a strong meltemi, the summer north wind, stops the boats.

  9. Manto Mavrogenous

    A bust of Manto Mavrogenous stands on Manto Square in Hora. This Mykonian noblewoman outfitted ships and fed crews from her family fortune in the 1821 revolution, and died in poverty on Paros in 1848. The part Mykonian women played in the war is the island’s deeper history, beneath the windmills.

  10. The other windows

    High season runs from late June to August. The other windows are worth holding for: late May to mid-June, when the kitchens are open and rooms are still available, and the second half of September into early October, when fewer cruise ships call, the meltemi softens and Hora empties back to its lanes. In those shoulder months the island is most itself.

Anchorage Notes

  1. Tourlos

    Tourlos, the New Port a little north of Hora, is where the Municipal Port Fund of Mykonos places the fleet: motor yachts, sailing yachts and RIBs (rigid inflatable boats) under 25 metres all lie here, at a marina berth reserved in advance. The Port Fund takes requests through one address, marina@mykonosports.gr. It grants the berth at its own discretion, and a request alone does not secure one.

  2. The Old Port

    The Port Fund reserves the Old Port at Hora for motor yachts over 25 metres and sends sailing yachts to Tourlos whatever their size. The fleet therefore divides by type of vessel: the large motor yachts lie off the town and everything else at the New Port. The charter broker settles which of the two a vessel belongs to well before it nears the island.

  3. Ornos and the south

    Ornos, Platys Gialos and Kalafatis are the Municipal Port Fund’s port zones on the south coast, with Ornos 3.5 kilometres below Mykonos Town. A tender runs into these bays for the day, for the beach, a long lunch and the afternoon, and a yacht does not tie up in them for the night. All three are among the Fund’s six facilities, the southern counterpart to the two working ports in the north.

  4. Delos

    Delos is a port zone of Mykonos that the Port Fund lists among its facilities, but the crossing to the sacred island is run by the Mykonos-Delos Consortium, not by the Fund. The landing serves a day visit to the birthplace of Apollo, an archaeological island on the UNESCO list. The morning boats leave from Hora and return by evening, so Delos is a call and never a mooring.