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.