Cyclades Day I: Delos - or will it be Mykonos - or Tinos?

Up bright and early: the only way to Delos is by boat from Mykonos but, being off-season, I was not entirely sure if/when there would be ferries. Hmm... So, I decided to fly to Mykonos and dash straight to the port, on the off-chance there was a boat on the Friday: it would not leave before eight o'clock, surely? No, but it would - and did - leave at ten past eight, and when I reached the quay at quarter past was just a speck in the distance bobbing up and down on the seas.

No boat?

No other boat today; or tomorrow; - but there might be on Sunday,. So that was that. Instead, I had a delightful time exploring Mykonos town, - a typically picture-postcard Cycladic town with lots of white-washed houses overhanging narrow, windy streets, -

Mykonos Chora

and then the archaeological museum, before nipping off to Tinos for the afternoon.

Academy Painter, 3q 5th BC

I did nott want another early start the Saturday morning, and I was keen to see the Evangelistria, the archaeological museum, and just to wander round the island. Alas, when I arrived: the museum was κλειστό. Not sure if this is by ministerial decree, or the guards had just decided to go home early, - but Evangelistria more than made up for it: one night in 1822, Pelagia, a nun of Tinos, dreamed that a miraculous icon was buried nearby. She led her neighbors to the place she had seen, and, on digging, they discovered the remains of a Byzantine church with the icon. The icon depicts Mary kneeling in prayer, is believed to have miraculous healing powers, and is the focus of pilgramage from all over Greece.

1824 Church complex housing the Evangelistria

Afterwards, looking at the map, there were two possible goals: an old Venetian castle c 10km away on a 640m outcrop (a bit forbidding?), and a temple of Demeter and Amphitrite, - no mention of a temple of Poseidon, unfortunately. So I hiked out north to the temple, and then in a large loop round to the south of Tinos town. It was a huge sanctuary in the Hellenistic period, as the size of the enclosed archaeological area perhaps corroborates, but, alas, the remains are less than impressive...