Much about Milos

After Carnival there has been a lull in activities. A Lenten lull, if you will. While we had a weirdly hot taste of spring in early February, it's now back to rain, rain, rain. Cold rain. In the mountains it's cold enough to snow, but not here. And since I've had a lot of time on my hands indoors, I've been reminiscing about sunnier, hotter days. Time to finish up the recap of Greece last summer. Better late than never!

This is going to get long...

Cave in Milos

After seeing Athens and two very different coastal towns, we headed to a Greek island. After all, if you travel to Greece without visiting an island, did you even really go there? As it was July, we avoided the most popular ones at all costs. Santorini was out of the question. Our decision to go low-key was corroborated by an American we met who said that they had come from Santorini and that at sunset they couldn't even get into their apartment because of the hordes. Yikes. Thanks to someone's extensive research (not mine!), we landed on Milos, an island ¨with it all¨ ´--except for crowds, that is. Its claim to fame is perhaps being home to the statue Venus de Milo.

Transportation

We opted to fly to Milos, as the ships can take hours upon hours and we didn't have tons of time to spare. To start, we boarded a small plane-- the ones with giant propellers. I was a bit nervous there might be a lot of notable turbulence, but we lucked out. Once we landed...I have seen many bus stations bigger than Milos' airport. It was tiny! I was fascinated about how it would work to fly back, since there didn't appear to be any security or anything. However, a week later we saw for ourselves that there is another section of the airport dedicated to Departures, where airport security agents come only when a flight is about to take off. 

 

Some were interested in photographing the tiny plane.
Others were interested in the tiny airport.

The island itself is obviously small, and only has a few roads connecting the handful of towns and villages.  The whole western part is off-limits to normal rental cars, because of the dirt roads. We rented a cute off-roading car, allowing us to access all the roads. If we had rented one of the many four-wheelers spotted driving around, we also would have been able to go on the forbidden paths, but it just wasn't realistic to transport our suitcases on a quad.

The Beaches

If the moon had a beach

As a small island, the highlight of Milos is probably the beaches. The most enchanting are so unique because of the contrasts of turquoise/emerald water against an ashy grey/white background. And in Sarakiniko, you are surrounded by the white rocks. It's like walking on the moon! I was surprised that people had actually come to go in the water, as it seemed more like a photo op. But the formations of the ashy cliffs made for a great jumping spot for those brave enough to leap into the sea. (Not me). We stayed at Sarakiniko for only an hour or two-- just enough time to take pictures, and cool off by jumping in or wading in the shallow water. After all, we had a list of more beaches to gawk at. 

 

Sarakiniko: The Moon

The other beach I enjoyed the most was not for the sand, but for the man-made scenery. Firopotamos' beach is miniscule, and certainly lacking in sand. The journey to get to it from the parked car was an adventure though! Well, first of all, the road hugging the cliffs to get to Firopotamos had parked cars lining it, making me all the gladder that I was not behind the wheel. There was a small parking area next to a church nearby. But at this point, we were further out to sea than the beach was. So we had to backtrack on foot. As the road was not an option, we splashed through the crystalline waters--the ¨front yard¨ of a handful of white and blue houses-- and slowly scaled some slippery rocks that led us to the knee-deep water in front of the beach. Whew! Aside from the frustration at being on the verge of falling into the water a few times, the view was bliss! 

Just passing through to Firopotamos' real beach

 

Firopotamos in the background

 The Seashore

Octopus out to dry

Although they are marked as beaches on the map of Milos, I hesitate to call them such because there wasn't a ¨beach vibe¨ of putting down towels and sitting for hours. Klima and Mandrakia are both colorful coastal hamlets, and very picturesque.

Mandrakia has a colorful little harbor. And by ¨harbor¨ I mean a tiny inlet with a dozen brightly-painted boat garages carved into the rocks, each with a boat floating in front of it. Although it wasn't a place to put your towel down, I did take a quick dip to beat the heat. On the other side of the wharf, we came upon an eye-catching sight. Rather than clothes on the clothesline, dozens of octopus legs! Hanging out to dry! That is apparently a typical way of preparing them in Milos, quite different from the Galician way of boiling octopus. 

 

Mantrakia's ¨Harbor¨ carved into the rocks

Klima is a must-see in Milos. Like Mandrakia, it's got brightly painted boat garages, but they are facing the open sea. They used to be fishermen houses. Their history is the same old tale that we have heard in Galicia and Portugal: all the houses were painted a different, vibrant color so that the sailors would recognize theirs from far away. Nowadays, more than residences, these syrma houses are rented out to travelers looking for a unique experience. At first I had wanted to stay in one, but after visiting, I was glad we hadn't. There is only one restaurant next to it; nothing else is within walking distance. Plus people wander past your front door at all hours. So little convenience and no seclusion. Pretty to walk around though!

Klima

 

 

The Towns

How many towns does Milos have? By most standards, I would say three. Its capital town perched high, called Plaka plus two port towns: Adamas and Pollonia. . Other villages dot the island, but calling them ¨towns¨ would be too generous.

To get to Plaka, you have to park in the parking lot below and hike up the hill it's on. At first I thought that it was a nice step in the right direction of pedestrian-only zones. But then I realized it's more practical than anything else, since hardly any of the paths were wide enough for a car, in addition to them being mostly leveled out into stairs. We went to Plaka two evenings and that was perfect. The first night, we came prepared with a snack in order to watch the sunset. We got to the lookout point early, before anyone else. By the time the sun was ready to go down, the small patio we were on was full. It was a nice view, blocked by fog just before the sun disappeared behind the horizon. Oh well. We were so charmed by the town that we decided to come back for dinner the next day. We landed on a place worthy of Rick Steves. It was in a plaza, under a giant tree covered with multicolored lights. They also had a little band singing Greek tunes. The downside was that for 20 tables there was only one waiter. We weren't in a huge hurry, and didn't feel like finding another restaurant, so we endured the longest wait in what is a country seemingly geared towards serving tourists. After dinner, we strolled around the whitewashed alleys, taking it all in. Quintessential Greek!

 

Plaka, from our sunset spot

Adamas was our nearest town and from its harbor we set sail on a day cruise along the island. The town also has cheap eats and patios all along the harbor. The other port town of Pollonia is barely a town. It had several restaurants to cater to tourists, but apparently only 200 people actually live there. We only drove through Pollonia on our way to the ferry to go to an even smaller island: Kimolos. And that recap shall be for another day. 

Church in Adamas