The Cyclades party island — windmills, Little Venice, lobster pasta, and the world's most famous beaches
Mykonos is the most internationally famous of the Cyclades — a windswept island of whitewashed cubic houses, 16 iconic windmills above Mykonos Town, and a reputation for high-energy nightlife that dates to the jet-set era of the 1960s. But beneath the global tourism industry, it remains a Cycladic island of genuine character: the labyrinthine alleyways of Mykonos Town (Chora) were deliberately designed to confuse pirates, Little Venice's painted balconies hang directly above the Aegean, and the beach tavernas at Psarou and Ornos still serve the island's definitive dish — lobster pasta (astako…
Mykonos was inhabited in antiquity and served as a stepping stone for pilgrims visiting the sacred island of Delos — just 2km away, visible from Mykonos Town — which was one of the most important sanctuaries in the ancient Greek world. The island was relatively marginal in the Byzantine and Ottoman periods, populated mainly by fishermen and traders; it was the 20th century that transformed it. Jackie Kennedy, Maria Callas, and Aristotle Onassis discovered it in the 1960s; their presence attracted global attention. The nudist beaches and openly gay scene that emerged in the 1970s-80s made Myko…