Another valid alternative of the things to see in Mykonos during your holiday in Greece is definitely the Aegean Maritime Museum.

We find it in the heart of the capital Mykonos Town in the Tria Pigadia area in a 19th century building with a classic Cycladic style. The building belonged to the glorious Captain Nikolaos Sourmelis, ship master and commander of the merchant ship Enosis, who became famous for his support in the struggle of the Cretans against the Turks.

The Aegean Maritime Museum boasts a rich collection of naval models from 1500 BC and reveals more information on Greek maritime history and tradition. The exhibition will make you travel through time on the Aegean routes from the past to the most modern times. You can admire finds of ship models from the pre Minoan period documented by rare engravings, maps, ancient artifacts, navigation instruments and a collection of rare coins with nautical themes from the 5th century BC to the 5th century AD. There are also frescoes from the site archaeological Akrotiri located on the Santorini island, ceramic finds from the Rhina island, Delos and Paros, ancient amphorae, rudders and portraits. The Library of the Institute includes over 5,000 maritime volumes with manuscripts, photographs continuously updated to the present day.

The founder of the Aegean Maritime Museum, Myconian George M. Dracopoulos, was honored by the Athens Academy Aword for his great commitment to making this gift to the world, a title of great value and with the World Ship Trust’s Award for Indivuale Achivement. The organization was founded in 1983 with no profit and open to all in 1985. The main intent is to preserve and promote the study and history of the Hellenic maritime tradition.

The museum also has three living historical artifacts as spearheads. The first is the Armenistis lighthouse , awarded at the Universal Exposition in Paris in 1890 which brings its sea breeze into the garden of the exhibition with the authentic mechanism of the first lamp considered a cutting edge work for the time. The second is the Perama “Evangelistria” sailboat, one of the last true boats of the famous Greek shipyard, built on the Syros island with a load capacity of ninety tons, twenty meters long, six and a half meters wide and with a total sail of two hundred twenty square meters. Until the 1970s it served as a merchant ship to the Aegean islands, then decommissioned and left in ruins on the island where it was built. The  Aegean Maritime Museum in collaboration with some specialists, between 1988 and 1990 have revived this beautiful ship by restoring it. The latest jewel is the steamship​ “Thalis o Milissios”, the oldest registered in the Hellenic naval register. Fifty one meters long and more than ten meters wide, it has been perfectly restored bringing it to its origin and enriched with nautical instruments, so much so that the Greek state destined it as a floating museum for scientific and cultural purposes.

The museum can be visited every day from April 1 to November 1 from 10.30 to 13.00 and from 18.30 to 21.00 and the entry price is around € 4 per person.

Take a trip to visit it, it will be an interesting parenthesis and will enrich your knowledge on the island of Mykonos so small but important and on maritime life from the times that were to the present.

Just reach the town of Mykonos and look for the Tria Pigadia area.

https://aegean-maritime-museum.gr/en/aegean-maritime-museum-myconos/evangelistria

Enoplon Dinameon 10, Mikonos 846 00, Greece