Mykonos - the Greek island of postcards

Day 7 (15 Nov 2025)

In the morning, we went to the very crowded cruise centre in Athens to board the Celestyal Discovery for our cruise of the Greek islands!

The tour agency told us not to expect much as it's not a large vessel, but honestly it's not too shabby!

The room is spacious enough and very clean. 

And of course the mandatory towel art.

We docked at Mykonos in the afternoon and gosh, it's such a beautiful place. All the houses on the rock face along the coast remind me so much of Cinque Terre in Italy, except instead of multi pastel colours, here it's all white with Mediterranean blue trim. The weather was absolutely perfect too.

The way the sunlight hit the buildings was breath-taking. It's an artist's dream.

 

Sunset is around 5.30pm and it became a mad rush chasing the dipping sun. But the fiery orange hue left such a gorgeous light on the buildings it made me think that's why they made the decision to paint the buildings white. No photo can do justice to the beauty of this coastline at dusk. 

We walked the cobblestone alleyways (every corner a postcard perfect sight). I was following my group mate Ezra as I had no clue where we were heading.

Finally, we reached the iconic windmills. They were mostly built by the Venetians in the 16th Century and were used to mill wheat. The whole village of Chora is visible from this raised area. 

 

Grateful to Ezra for leading the way and trying to teach me some photographic tips like blocking unwanted people in the background by basically standing in their way. Unfortunately, advice like "stand taller!" doesn't work for vertically challenged people like me  🤷 

 

And then finally the sun set. What a sight 😍
 

A few of us decided to have dinner at Mykonos. My roommate Agnes wanted to go back to the ship instead, so she left but not before instructing Ezra to look after me. Aww... so nice to have someone so protective watching over me!

What we quickly realised though is that since this is the low season (coming to winter), most of the shops and restaurants have closed shop for the year. The only restaurants open were the few along the beachfront. Many of them were very touristy but we chanced upon Vegera Mykonos which wasn't crowded and the food turned out to be delicious. 

Anchovies

Lamb chops

 

Octopus

They even gave us free dessert! 

After dinner, it was already pitch dark and pretty quiet. Really, the Greek islands seem to shut down during the low season. On the plus side, it means you don't have to jostle with the crowds and have space to enjoy the charm. I love just strolling in the cool seabreeze - so serene and refreshing. There was even a pelican preening in public!

Not this pelican... 

 

Breath-taking (I have run out of adjectives). 💙

 

Thessaloniki - city sights and a long bus ride

Day 6 (14 Nov 2025)

Our morning was spent seeing the sights of Thessaloniki. Thessaloniki is the second largest city in Greece after Athens and it's very pretty. Our tour guide Angela is from Thessaloniki and was clearly very proud of her city. We walked by the promenade which is the longest promenade in Greece - 5km of it by the beautiful Aegean sea. 

I was thinking that God blessed us with truly wonderful weather. It's supposed to be the rainy season but so far, it has only rained when we're indoors. The moment we need to explore an outdoor area, the weather clears up. The sea and skies in Greece are so blue 💙 

We saw a statue of Alexander the Great who is one of the great conquerors in the ancient world. In fact, Bible scholars agree that he was the leopard in Daniel's prophecy in Daniel 7. He conquered the entire Medo-Persian empire at great speed and at a very young age.

 We also saw the White Tower which has a dubious past. It was originally built to protect the city from pirates but during the Ottoman Empire, was turned into a prison where executions were held. It was later whitewashed and renamed the White Tower. It's now a museum. 

We drove by the ancient walls of Thessaloniki which used to protect the city...

...and up the Acropolis, the highest part of the city where we had a bird's eye view of the city.

The apostle Paul preached three times in Thessaloniki, but because a lot of the city was destroyed during the various wars, there is no record of exactly where. But we know there was a large Jewish community here, close to 60,000 Jews lived here. When the Nazis occupied the city, they confiscated Jewish property and sent the Jews to camps. Only 4% came back thereafter 😕

Then we hopped onto the bus and drove to the Archaeological Park of Dion, at the peaks of Mount Olympus. Dion was dedicated to various gods, particularly Zeus. 

 

 

We saw the remains of an agora from the time of the Roman empire. Here you can see what would have been shops, not too different from our marketplaces now.

 

There were Roman baths, where furnaces were fired up to heat pillars which would then heat up the floor and walls. 

 
We also saw a Roman public toilet where people would sit side by side doing their business while having a chat about politics perhaps. Communal living at the next level! 

Lunch was at a tavern along the way. The food was pretty unmemorable, hence no pictures.

And this is me fangirling with local Mediacorp actress Felicia Chin who's on the same tour group as us with her husband. I'm not typically enamoured with local actors but Felicia is a fellow World Vision child sponsor, so I have a soft spot for her.

 

We didn't do too much today as most of the time was spent on the bus driving back from Thessaloniki to Athens. I think it was about 7 hours. I know toward the end, I felt so cooped up I wanted to scream and jump up and down. Much as I've enjoyed this trip, I remember why I dislike package tours. 

I didn't eat much for lunch as I didn't care for the food, so at a pitstop, I ordered a slice of chocolate cake that looked really tempting. It turned out to be waaaay too sweet (that's saying something for someone like me with a tremendous sweet tooth!) because there's no cake at all, it's just a giant chunk of chocolate!

 

We  said goodbye to our tour guide Angela and driver Alex as this is the end of their leg with us. We'll be boarding a cruise tomorrow. They've both been absolutely wonderful and truly looked after the group well. I will miss hearing Angela's perky "Kalimera!" every morning. The banter between them is quite fun too as Angela is from Thessaloniki and Alex from Athens, so there's some healthy rivalry there! 

 

Felt like we would never arrive in Athens but we finally did. It's back to The Stanley, the same hotel we stayed in when we first arrived in Greece. This time, we made it to see the rooftop pool area.