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Every visitor photographs Little Venice; almost nobody asks why it exists. A row of houses built directly into the sea, wooden balconies hanging over the waves, on an island where every other building turns its back to the water — it is a genuine architectural oddity with a story attached.

Merchants, pirates, trapdoors

The houses date to the mid-1700s, when Mykonos was a busy trading and — depending on whom you ask — privateering port. The wealthy captains who built here wanted to load and unload goods straight from the water, and local legend insists the sea-facing basements hid trapdoors for cargo it was better the customs man never saw.

Visiting it well

Come twice. Once in the early morning, when the balconies glow and the only sound is water against stone — this is when you see the architecture. Then again at sunset with a cocktail, when the whole quarter turns gold and the waves occasionally send spray over the bar tables. Both are correct; they are simply different places.

The windmills of Kato Mili stand directly above, so the two make one perfect evening walk. Ask the desk to book the water’s-edge dinner table an evening ahead — the front row fills before the sun goes anywhere near the horizon.