Mykonos and Delos

The eyes of Mykonos

I came to Mykonos with reservations, both personal and fed by mocking comments from Lesbosians (not sure that’s a word but the alternative is confusing). “It’s very different. It’s very white” There were things they didn’t say but I inferred from their attitude -“superficial” “loose living”. The one thing I remember from my hitch-hiking twenties is the whiteness. Every single building looked and still looks as if it has been iced as for a wedding-cake – square, with little blue shuttered windows. Now however there are so many more little and indeed huge houses, tier upon tier of them - and no donkeys, just fast lawless cars and curious four wheeled bikes hired out to the tourists which make being a pedestrian a bloody nightmare because there are no footpaths..

I didn’t mean to get off on a negative note. Actually, in its way this place is a joy. So many people of all sorts enjoying themselves. So many businesses making proper livings. Glamourous little shops in tiny white lanes selling exquisite “objets”. One we investigated was a pair of golden seals balancing on their noses decahedrons made of semiprecious stones. Grant nonchalantly enquired about the price and it was ninety thousand euros. Not that the golden seals would quite have blended in with our Thomas Street décor but they were amazing for their outrageous and frivolous decadence and we admired them. And there are ice cream shops with thirty seven flavours and tavernas with fish and meat on spits and lots and lots of people to eat them. There is an exciting mixture of languages in the gaudy little lanes. Gay guys hold hands unafraid and all the bar folk have trendy hipster little beards.

Vangelis Taverna in Ana Mera, Mykonos

Bread puppets in Hora, the main town of Mykonos

Now I think about it I lied about the absence of donkeys. There is just one on the edge of the traffic free network of lanes but it is made of plaster. A lovely thing we saw as we arrived was a group of young girls with coronets of silk flowers in their hair and Greek flowing dresses all shrilling with laughter and larking about and taking photos around the donkey. It was a hen party and perhaps as is always the case, the bride, whose coronet was a contrasting halo of pearls. looked solemn. It seemed ancient and modern at the same time.

Today we took the small ferry ride to Delos, the sacred island where the twins Artemis and Apollo were born. It has been a magnificent place in its time. Now it is lots of marble and stone square enclosures that need explanation. Underfoot still are shards of ancient pottery and who knows what. Our guide’s husky Greek voice cut through the ruins “Delos Tours, Delos Tours come close to me” A cheeky American gave her a kiss “Not that close” she said laughing. She showed us rich villas with olive oil jars sunk in their kitchens. Huge reservoirs for rain water. She tried to explain the origin of drama as we sat under the hot sun in the massive tumbled amphitheatre but it slightly got lost in translation. I admired her courage taking on the job of guide with such spirit and energy and decidedly dodgy English.

Most ancient places retain a spirit of something – a quirky row of toilets holes, for instance, in Pompeii indicates perhaps communal and convivial defaecation. On Delos I sensed only defeat and destruction of a one time pretentiousness, (even perhaps including golden seals with semiprecious decahedrons balanced on their noses).

We finished with the museum in which was a stone hand the size of a  bar fridge,  the remnant of a statue of Apollo that towered nine metres tall, we are told. There those fingers curl, all by themselves in a corner.  All around are a crowd of other statues, a beautiful young man with half a leg and his poor little genitalia all gone. Stone heads with snakey beards and bits of bodies. Lots of robed people with no heads which have been looted by collectors with not too much luggage space.  A pitiful pair of feet on a pedestal.   One or two heads however, have withstood the ravages of time and looters but I can’t get what they are saying to me.  Their spirit has been slain.