Days 8-9 - Milos & Home

Day 8 – Milos

Today is the day Lauren has been waiting for all week.  No plans, no schedule.  We let her sleep until 8:30!  We rented a car with a plan to make it a beach day.  Given the continuing gale force winds coming from the North, we figured the South side of the island was going to be our best bet.  But before we went South, there was one stop we had to make.  Sarakiniko Beach. 

This beach is the entire reason I wanted us to go to Milos – the pictures are amazing (Google it) and I had to see if it was real.  The beach is known for its bleached white rocks that make it look weirdly lunar alongside turquoise crystal-clear waters in a very small, enclosed bay.  While this beach is on the North side of the island and thus subject to the howling winds, it did not disappoint.  The landscape is hard to describe – the white rocks and bluffs go on forever and they are carved out in weird patters by the wind.  Many of the rocks have ridges running through them almost like veins from the wind patterns. 

The water, while churning from huge booming waves, was still bright and blue.  We watched the waves crashing in through arches and curves in the rocks – totally mesmerizing.  

There was enough stuff to keep us busy for a day just climbing and watching, but alas, the wind got the better of us.  Getting pelted by sand and pebbles without reprieve can only last so long.  Given how impressive this beach was on a bad day, I can only imagine floating in the clear water on a calm day.

On our drive out, we bumped into one of our shipmates from yesterday (London, never caught her name) – she was on foot hiking up a hill to get to the beach.  We freaked her out when we pulled up along side and offered her a ride to the beach – it took her a second to place us – but we did drop her off there.  I always find it fascinating during travels how we tend to bump into the same people everywhere.  This island is big (per Google, it is a little more than twice the size of Santorini) and there are a lot of beaches!  In any case, with our good deed for the day done, we went to the South side in hunt of a good beach.

One of the beaches on my list, that we were able to find, is called Firiplaka.  Milos is made up of lots and lots of hills, so weirdly, we always end up driving up a hill and then walking down to the beach.  While there are a few main paved roads, many of the roads are gravel and almost all are single lane.  We made our way up and around trying to find parking as most people just sort of look for an open spot on the side of the dirt road to park.  We ended up at the top of a dirt road that just ended, decided it was as good a spot as any, and hiked back down to get to the beach.

The beach was a pleasant surprise – it was tiny by US standards, but we are learning that a “beach” located on a volcanic rock, is usually very small.  This one was a dream – even though it was a secluded little cove surrounded by rocks, it had a bunch of cushioned chairs and palapas for rent, and a little bar with food and drinks.  

Each palapa only came with two chairs, but we were able to get a singe “poof” for Lauren, who seemed quite content.  And yes, the staff called them poofs.  Which I still think is funny.  

On this tiny little secluded beach, within minutes, we bumped into the following people who were on our sailboat yesterday: the couple from Denver, the London girl, a Canadian girl who was on our shuttle but on one of the other sailboats, and the captain of our boat.  I think we knew more people than the locals!

While normally I’m incapable of sitting still long enough to fully relax, today is Lauren’s day, so we all just laid around and did nothing but read for 4-5 hours.  The temperature was a perfect mid-70’s and the wind was (almost) completely blocked, the water clear blue and nearly wave free.  We left the beach around 4:30 to head back to our hotel as we had been asked to change rooms after we extended our stay last minute.  They upgraded us to the largest suite with 3 bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms, and a master shower room that had a hot tub bathtub in the shower room.  All in all, nice digs for our last night. 

Since we still had the car, we drove to the capital town of Plaka, which is supposed to be the best place to watch the sunset.  We made it just as the sun was setting.  Some clouds had blown in and we didn’t quite face West but having just experienced two of the most amazing sunsets of our lives in Santorini, we weren’t disappointed.  Plaka is this weird little village – of course you must walk up a hill or a million steps to get to the main area.  Plaka is hard to describe – much like Santorini, it has all the white houses built close together one on top of another, but they are not hotels, they seem to be residences interspersed with tiny shops and restaurants.  There are tiny narrow walkways (with lots of steps) with no discernible pattern as to how the area is laid out.   

I thought it would be killer for hide and seek…  The temperature had dropped and with the wind, we picked a restaurant that had some indoor seating and checked off another amazing dinner.  We are currently doing the Greek tour of fried zucchini, feta cheese and tzatziki sauce.  We wandered around the town a little bit after dinner, but we weren’t properly dressed for the change in weather, and naturally we were exhausted after a day of relaxing, so we went back to our hotel to enjoy its hugeness.

Day 9 – Milos & Athens

Our last day on the islands before we head home (sob) and another day with no schedule.  Of course, I had my top 10 checklist bunched into beaches and beauty, historical sights, and souvenir shopping.  We opted to start in our main town, Adamantas for coffee and shopping.  The wind continued to pick up and the temp was lower, so we were all happy to casually cruise around.  After Adamantas, we headed to the south beaches again.  I had a few on my list that were supposed to “cool” in some sense.  Our first beach, which was right next door to the one from yesterday, is called Tsigrado Beach, and it is known for being accessible only by ladders.  Sounded like something we needed to do.

We got to the beach and all we see is a bunch of people peering over a cliff edge.  Hmm, this should be interesting.  

We get closer and see a teeny tiny beach in a teeny tiny cove about 50’ below us.  To get to it, you had to shimmy through a crack in the rocks to the first ladder leading into sort of a slot canyon that went downhill.  

At the bottom of the ladder was a rocky/sandy area that was the perfect size and shape for 30mph winds to howl through and pelt you with sand, rocks, and other debris.  

You sort of walk/slid through this area (going downhill) and you get to a second ladder maybe twice the length of the first, and that is what you climb down to get to the beach.  But not before the area widened just enough for the wind/sand/rock combo to give you that final slam in the face because it knows you need your eyes wide open to get down the ladder.  There was a lot of “ow” “ouch” “I’m hit” “ahhhh” in that little area.

If you look close, you can see sand and debris swirling around my head - it is not a grainy picture

The beach had maybe 20 people on it, which filled it up.  We just wanted to check it out and didn’t intend to stay, so after a bit of exploration, we did the debris wind tunnel in reverse – even more fun when your face must be tilted up to see where you are going.

Back in the car, we mapped out our next beach – Kalamos, which we never found.  We followed dirt roads and rocky roads up hill and downhill across half the island following what we though was appropriate Google mapping directions.  It doesn’t help that when you use Google Maps in Greece, well, everything is written in Greek.  Damon always lets me make the final call when I think what we are attempting is too stupid or too dangerous, and in this case, driving a rental car with no 4-wheel drive up and down narrow cliffside “roads” with absolutely no cue where we were trying to go, made the cut for tapping out.  At one point, we did get stuck in some sand and Damon had a bit of a panic, so he did not try to argue turning around.

They have been lost longer than us

Lost. 

On to the next beach – Agia Kiriaki – this one had both directional signs and a somewhat paved road and when we finally found it, there was a tiny cove with a bunch of sailboats and a cute little taverna on the beach where we had lunch – inside.  Even though we were still on the south side, the wind was still rough and we all agreed that the free full body exfoliation we were getting from the whirling sand was probably not worth it.

One final stop on our Milos tour – Theiorichia – to see the ruins of a sulfur mining plant.  Side note, Milos is a mining island.  They have a mining museum, and active quarry, and this location held the promise of some old mining equipment and supposedly led you to an active quarry with great rock colors from the mining. If we thought trying to get to Kalamos beach was bad, that was a cake walk compared to this one.  Once you start driving on these narrow roads, there is not always a place to turn around, so you have to commit.  And commit we did.  Without anywhere to turn, we ended up going down this crazy steep grade on a rocky single lane road, and then it immediately went back up at possibly an even steeper grade.  Again, rental car, no four-wheel drive.  Somehow, our luggage laden car puttered to the top and we still could not figure out with any confidence where we were.  With no other cars in sight, we found a place to turn around just so we could do it again.  My biggest fear was popping a tire and getting stuck in the middle of nowhere.  Damon’s biggest fear was that the car wouldn’t make it to the top, which would force us to unload our luggage, plus me and Lauren, and then walk it all up that massive hill.  Oh, hell no.  Thankfully, the car made it.  Probably because we were all leaning forward and yelling “COME ON… COME ON”.

We couldn’t find the ruins, but we back tracked and found the quarry, which did have amazing colors (pictures don’t quite capture).  But here, not only were we getting pelted with sand, but there were also small pebbles getting whirled about that were a little more painful in the wind.

Having run out of adrenalin for the day, we drove back to Plaka and found a nice INDOOR bakery that had the cutest little private alcove, where we drank coffee and ate Greek desserts for an hour or two before our final stop of the day.

Last stop on my list was a small fishing village called Klima, known for its brightly colored fisherman houses.  The waves roll right up to the houses, so it was fun to try to time the pictures so as not to get soaked. 

Lauren trying not to get hit by a wave

My version of keeping my feet dry

We returned the car and waited to begin the long journey home – starting with the ferry to Athens.  Usually there is not much to say about the journey home, but I wanted to remember this ferry ride.  First, we noticed a last-minute change to the ferry boat name – rumor has it (from the waiting crowd) that due to the high winds, our original ship was too small so they swapped it for a bigger boat (insert Jaws reference here).  Nothing makes me more excited for a boat ride than knowing it will be rocky enough to require a bigger boat.  Luckily, we’ve all been wearing our scopolamine (magic) patches from the other day, so not too worried.  So eventually this behemoth ferry arrives, totally dwarfing the other ferry in the port.  The back drops down and out pour hundreds of people and a bunch of cars.  We figured the boarding would take at least 30 minutes – wow were we wrong.  They basically started another free-for-all boarding process when hundreds of people just boarded the ship and we all hung out in the 2-story cargo/car area while we squeezed one at a time through two doors to the passenger cabin.

The crew was herding everyone on board and as soon as they got everyone physically onto the ferry, the back ramp closed, and the ferry just left – with all of us basically standing in the cargo area.  It took about 10-15 minutes to get everyone through to the passenger area where we had nice comfy seats for the duration of the ride.  The ride, by the way, was interesting.  I have never experienced turbulence on a boat, but we did.  No other way to describe it.  The ferry was huge (1300 people + cars), but we felt waves crashing into us.  It was only a 3-hour ride, we made it safely to Athens, got to our hotel around 10pm, ordered room service, ate, slept, had breakfast, went to the airport, flight delayed 2.5 hours, flew to DC, missed our connection, waited 5 more hours in DC for a 10:30pm flight to Chicago.  Got to Chicago around midnight after being awake for about 28 hours, went to sleep at home. 

All in all, another amazing trip.

Days 6-7 - Santorini & Milos

Day 6 - Santorini

Our last day in Santorini and time for "the big walk."  We had all agreed the night before to a moderately early wake-up so we could do the (“top 10 things to do in Santorini”) walk from Fira to Oia, which is about 10.5km or 6.5ish miles.  The goal was to head out early to avoid the heat of the day and make it back to our hotel in time to make our Ferry.  We packed everything, checked out of our hotel, and began the hike.  We started in Imerovigli rather than Fira since we knew there was an entry point near the Skaros Rock path near our hotel, which (thankfully) cut about a mile off the hike. 

The first part of the hike was wonderful.  It was on the West side of the island and so we walked completely in shade, and it was all through the white cliffside hotels which are just beautiful. Maybe not if you are staying in them since each one has a “private” pool which a million people are walking by; but they are nice.  

We are aiming for the white at the very end on the left of the picture

Still happy

Fira/Imerovigli and Oia are all located on the highest parts of the island, which means that to get from one to the other, you must walk down to the road and then back up again.  That part of the hike, while very beautiful from a caldera perspective, was also in the sun and hot hot hot and on a steep rocky path. 

Up up up

Down down down

Up up up

Interspersed along the path were various churches – all white or white with blue domes.  I’m not sure if they are actively used – generally they seem small and hard to get to, but they are everywhere.  At one of the churches, we bumped into a guy walking in the other direction and noticed a 2016 Cubs World Series tattoo on his arm.  We high fived Chicago, celebrated his and his in-laws wedding anniversaries (they were all home sleeping), and carried on.  I love these little interactions when we travel – I always stop to chat with people if they are willing to chat back.  We’ve met some interesting characters along the way!

Church in the middle of nowhere

By about the 2.5 hour mark, I could tell Lauren & Damon were “done” with the hike – the distance, the terrain, and the heat.  Not much we could do about it, but eventually (5.6 miles and 3 hours later), we started weaving through the white cliffside hotels of Oia.  

Ammoudi Bay and our cliff jumping rock in upper left!

Oia was significantly more crowded than Imerovigli.  Most certainly the heaviest tourist area we had seen so far.  We happened into what I assume is the main tourist drag – a fully marble walkway, narrow, with only one line of traffic in either direction, and restaurants and shops lining both sides.  We picked one of the first caldera facing cafes we came across and settled in for cold drinks and lunch. 

Before leaving Oia, we wanted to see the famous three blue domed churches.  Now the funny thing is, there are blue dome churches EVERYWHERE.  Why these three are so special is something I have yet to research.  In any case, we were pretty sure we knew where they were because we could see a group of tourists all leaning over a railing taking pictures – a sure sign there is something to see.  We tried to head toward said railing, but you can’t really see where you are going – there are tons of people and tiny little pathways that may or may not lead to anything.  We found one little pathway and realized we made it just to the other side of the three domes and despite Damon being thoroughly annoyed with the slow-moving single-laned crowds, we made him back track to try to find the right path.  We tried one more and had gone too far back and there was a building in the way.  I had used up Damon’s patience and we were at our deadline for heading back to the hotel, so while we DID in fact see the three blue domed churches, we saw them from the less spectacular back side.  Typical for us.

Backside of the three famous blue domed churches

We made our way to the bus station to catch a taxi back to our hotel, spent about an hour chilling by the pool waiting on our taxi, and then went back to the main port to catch a Speedjet Ferry to our next island, Milos.  The Ferry was not what I was expecting – the last time I took a Ferry to Greece was in 1988.  It was a huge, slow moving boat with tons of outdoor space, lounge chairs, etc.  Things have changed – we were on a “Speedjet” high speed Ferry.  The inside looked like an airplane and they just loaded us like cargo with a seating free-for-all.  We left our luggage outside on the back of the boat so not surprisingly, we picked up our bags covered in salt.  Despite the strange boarding process, all in all, it was quite comfortable, and we were in Milos in about 2 hours.

We had a ride waiting to take us to our hotel, which was about 2 minutes away. Our hotel is an awesome little apartment/suite with two bedrooms and a full kitchen.  We unpacked and walked back to town and had a great dinner on the water.  Milos is significantly smaller that Santorini, from what we can see.  Smaller, slow moving, and no crowds.  We like it.  After dinner, we went back to our hotel for another good sleep.

Daddy daughter dinner

Postscript – at some point during the day, we learned about the earthquake in Crete and realized that what Damon & Lauren felt yesterday in Santorini, was, in fact, an earthquake.  I’m a little bummed because I felt nothing, and it was my very first quake.  Oh well.

Day 7 – Milos

Hard to believe we’ve been at this for a week!  Following a quick breakfast in our room, we walked back to the port for our pick-up for a full day cruise around the island.  We had received a note from the tour company warning us that due to unusually high winds, we would not be able to hit all the hotspots and we would be limited to the Southern side of the island.  Much like Santorini, Milos is sort of crescent shaped and it is surprisingly about the same size, if not even a little bit bigger, but with a significantly smaller permanent population.  We were hoping that the winds would not be too bad on the back side.  I don’t know much about Milos at this point – we are renting a car and touring around, so more details to come.

The shuttle dropped us at a beach where our sailboat was docked.  We motored over in a dinghy and our guide let me “drive” it all the way to the ship – woot woot.  Our ship was at max capacity with ten passengers.  Two other Americans, two French, two from Denmark and one from London.  We headed out once everyone was on board.  Almost immediately, we were hit with crazy winds.  

Too windy for the sails

Interestingly (and thankfully), the way the winds came off the island, there were no big waves, just crazy strong wind.  We made our first stop at a beach and were given the option to jump off the boat and swim around – only half the people did it.  The other half, including us, decided it was way to windy and cold to swim to shore.  That being said, we did find time to laze about the boat and enjoy the sun!

Natural born yachter

Boater babes

We cruised for another hour or two and the wind was rough.  The sun was out but the wind on top of an occasional splash made hanging out on the front of our sailboat hard to take.  Eventually, most of us made our way to the back of the boat where it was somewhat protected.  I think everyone was a little bit bummed since we had all signed up for this amazing 9-hour experience.  But then… we found our way into a tiny little cove called Kleftiko.  Kleftiko is a protected cove, it has clear crystal blue water, and a bunch of little caves.  We tied up with two other sailboats from the same company and we all had the opportunity to snorkel around while half the group went in the dinghy to tour the caves.  Our group was swim/snorkel first.  The water was pleasant, there was no wind, and wow was it clear.  We played for a little while and then got back on the boat to relax in the sun and dry off.

Actual water color in the sun!

Chillin

Soon, it was our group’s turn to take the dinghy ride through the caves.  Apparently, the caves were used by pirates back in the day – they were certainly small enough for little boats and we were able to get out and swim in some of them.  

The water was just ridiculously clear.  At one point, we were given the option for another cliff jump with three jump levels – one was about 5’, one was about 18’ and the highest was about 24’.  We had to scramble up (barefoot) these really sharp rocks.  Damon jumped from level 1 – TWICE!  Lauren jumped from level 2, and of course since our tour guide told me he didn’t think I would ever do it, I jumped from the highest level – slightly more graceful this time around, but I forgot to plug my nose and pretty much had saltwater in my brain.

Level 3!

Level 2

During one cave stop, our tour guide, familiar with “the ‘gram”, had Lauren pose for about 500 pictures which he fully directed.  Damon and I videotaped the entire process.  Directions were “lean back” “lean forward” “play with your hair” “look to the side” “look up”  “look down” “get on the rock” “get off the rock”… you get the picture. 

Behind the scenes

The 'gram pic

We visited a few more caves and then had the option to swim about 100 meters back to the boat, which Damon & I did, earning us a much-deserved huge Greek lunch.  We hung out on the boat for a bit longer since it was really the only stop we could make with the winds blowing full force, but even being limited to the one stop, the day was amazing.  Pretty much everyone was hunkered down at the back of the boat on the way back, but we had a good little group and we all had an amazing time.

We shuttled home, took showers, and then walked to a local taverna for dinner.  The food here has been amazing and the wine flows freely at darn near every meal.  Can’t complain about that!

Random thoughts... there are cats roaming the streets everywhere.  We’ve been to other countries where dogs run the roads, but here, it is cats.  They just sort of lazily roam around and they are not at all afraid of people – always looking for food handouts, but never in an annoying or aggressive way.  They snake around your legs at restaurants since nearly all seating is outdoors.  They generally seem clean which is good, because Lauren is a little bit obsessed with all of them!  I will say that some of them have very interesting markings since I’m guessing they are all “mutt” cats.  No dogs, on the other hand – we’ve seen a few roaming the streets, but the crazy thing about the dogs is that they all belong to someone.  Every dog we’ve seen on the street has a collar and tags.  It seems that people chain their dogs up outside (not a fan), but then at night, they let the dogs just roam and assume that they will eventually come home.  This theory was proved out in Santorini when we bumped into the dog that had been chained up next door to our hotel on two different nights – just out for a casual stroll. 

And that closes out another fantastic day in Greece.