Parikia, Paros to Mykonos a Warm Travel Day to our Next Island

July 9th

The beach in the distance is where I swam

Inspired by the sunset and swimmers at the beach near us, I woke up early to go for a morning swim. I wanted to make sure I fit in an extra activity for the day because I knew we weren’t about to have the most exciting day waiting for the ferry, riding the ferry, and getting to our hotel in Mykonos. 

The water was so chilly in Paros that it took me a while to even wade in. I had the beach to myself for most of it, however there was a sweet grandma that also had a morning dip on her to-do list for the day and joined me in the beginning. I was at Livadia Beach, the closest one to the port in Parikia. Knowing I would take a shower this morning, I finally sunk my shoulders and let my legs release and my head fell under the water. Such a good feeling and somehow warms you up and connects you with the water. I was tempted to make a morning workout of it and do some laps, but there were tons of fish swimming around so I respected their territory and stayed close to shore. This would be for enjoyment.

I went back to the hotel excited for breakfast, the leftover almond butter pancakes. Again, I left them outside to heat up or at least lose their chill from the fridge. I ate them with wet hair and a view of the sea. The life. We slowly hung out at the hotel in the morning, knowing that our ferry wasn’t until 4pm and we would have plenty of time to walk around the city after checking out that we didn’t rush the start of our morning. I took my shower, put on my outfit for the day, and started packing up the disarray of clothing on the floor that I created the last three days. We had the best stay at this hotel. Cute room, comfy bed, great neighbors, beautiful view, and the best owner. 

I felt like Ross Gellar taking advantage of every minute he paid for in the hotel because we seriously didn’t check out until right at 11am. There was a cute cafe in town I wanted to check out, having had my breakfast but not coffee, this was the perfect thing to do to kill time before our ferry. We went to Cafe Symposium and I had a latte while Mom got a chocolate croissant. We were there for a while, chatting, slowly enjoying our orders and reflecting on our time so far in Greece. It was starting to get really hot outside, so we also stayed here to escape the heat to make sure mom felt alright.

Again, we found ourselves walking around the city when it was dead because everyone was bunkered in due to the extreme heat or they were next to a body of water and not walking around town during the hottest part of the day. But, we had nothing else to do so we walked the same streets we had the last three days, making me anxious to move onto the next and have a new place to explore. It had gotten so hot that we decided to just go back to our hotel and wait on the patio area until our ferry. We were not experiencing much aimlessly walking around the town and might as well relax, albeit in the heat, but that seemed to be a better option that what we were doing now. 

We stopped at a grocery store on our way back to the hotel. I still had some leftovers that I needed to eat for lunch, but then I also picked up a banana and some soy greek yogurt. The yogurt was mixed berries and seriously the best yogurt I’ve ever had. This being said, it was Alpro yogurt, a popular vegan yogurt brand in Europe, but maybe because I was in the land of greek yogurt that I primed myself to believe that it was due to my current physical location that this was so good. We sat there until we were ready to go to the ferry, saying goodbye to our sweet host Alexandra once more. 

We waited at Gregory’s until the ferry finally arrived. We were ready to head to Mykonos, or get out of the heat, but the ferry was slightly delayed. Only 30 minutes, but I was so ready to just get on the boat and get there. We weren’t staying in the port city like we did in Paros. I was nervous about figuring out the best way to get to the hotel I booked in Mykonos, a taxi was really the only logical option but after hearing how expensive the island is, I was preparing myself to pay over 50 euro for a ride, maybe even up to 80 and that was an unpleasant thought because to see that much money go to something as a car ride was hard, but also understanding that it is part of the process. The budget-traveler mindset is ingrained in me, I wonder if I will ever shake it. 

Thankfully the ferry ride was only 45 minutes, and we found a taxi very easily that ended up only costing 40 euro, which split in half was an amount I could stomach. When we got to our hotel that was tucked in a quieter part of the island, we had the sweetest Greek mother who owned the place check us in.

The view from the hotel was incredible. It overlooked the ocean and within the water were yachts scattered throughout. It felt so good to finally arrive in Mykonos and be checked into our room. We didn’t do much more with our night except grab dinner and watch the sunset on our patio table. One thing I splurged on for our hotel rooms was sea view, and having one here was great because I spent a lot of time at our table on our patio, journaling, calling family, and taking in the beauty of this island. My worries of whether this island was a good stop in our journey eased up as we could have stayed at this hotel the whole duration of our stay and still have a fantastic time. 

The dinner spot we went to was walking distance from the hotel and I got bean dip and a local veggie dish. The server even assured me that the green beans in the dish were grown in the garden here. It was super delicious but an incredibly filling meal having a whole appetizer of bean dip and bread to myself and then a plate full of veggies. I think me sitting on that patio had more to do with that meal immobilizing me. We did stop at the mini market to pick up water because we learned that you couldn’t drink the tap water on the island. A peaceful end to a sort of unorganized, unplanned travel day.