Mykonos Town Holidays

Mykonos Town is a jumble of white houses, scrubbed and polished and accessorised with blue doors and flower-filled balconies. The whole place is a warren of narrow lanes and endless nooks and crannies hiding a little church here, a tiny boutique there. It climbs from the port up the gentle inclines of a hillside, watched over by the island’s 16th-century windmills.

The town’s labyrinthine layout – originally intended to baffle marauding pirates – means it’s easy to get lost here, but that’s half the fun. There’s plenty to see while you get your bearings. Coming from the ferry quay, there’s every chance you’ll pass the Archaeological Museum and its pottery displays, plus the Folklore Museum housed in an 18^th-century mansion. Keep walking uphill and you might end up on Matoyianni Street, wall-to-wall with independent stores selling leather goods and one-of-a-kind jewellery.

Cupped in a wide bay, the harbour is where the Prada-clothed crowd hangs out to watch the world go by. It’s a whirl of activity, with fishing boats bobbing on the water and ferries coming and going from other islands in the Cyclades. The Little Venice quarter, so-called because of its balconied houses teetering right by the water’s edge, is nearby. It’s a long-standing artists’ haunt, and has almost as many galleries as it does restaurants and bars.

The town has a small beach at the harbour front, and superior sands are close by. Platys Gialos is a long, stretch, 15 minutes away by bus, and the springboard to other southern Mykonos beaches. From here, it’s a few minutes’ walk to the little cove of Aghia Anna, where a handful of bamboo dividers and a sole taverna keep things low-key. It’s only another 15 minutes over the headland to laid-back Paranga Beach.