Sunday, September 16, 2012

Arriving at Adamas

Assuming you take the ferry to Milos, you'll be arriving in the port town of Adamas.  Adamas is reasonably large for an island port town, and it does have a bit of the typical cycladic island town beauty to it.  Unfortunately, you probably won't spend much time in that part of town.  All the shops and restaurants of Adamas are right along the water.  Then at the back of the shops/restaurants there's a ~15-foot high wall, and the rest of town is up on top of that wall.  There are stairs and roads that lead up to town.  You can get there, and there are three or four restaurant/bars built right at the edge of the wall to take advantage of the views of the water.  But other than those bars, the wall forms a sort of barrier between the port/commercial area and the town where the locals live.  There's basically nothing to see or do in that part of the town.  (I may be slightly mistaken that there's *nothing* to see or do, but I didn't find anything.)  Not that it really matters; the waterfront is long and it's dense with restaurants and shops.

But if you want that classic cycladic experience of wandering the narrow streets and stairs built into the hillside, wondering what restaurant, museum, church, bar, ancient site, art gallery or shop you're going to find around the next corner, you'll have to head to Plaka.  Plaka does not disappoint, but that's a subject for another post.

Back to Adamas, it's also the site of two of Milos' many beaches, Lagada and Papikinou.  The port/waterfront lies directly in front of "downtown" Adamas, with Lagada immediately to the west and Papakinou immediately to the east.  It's maybe a 10 minute walk from one to the other.  Lagada beach is small and it's not organized (i.e., no umbrellas or coffee service on the beach) and it's not as pretty as Papakinou, in my opinion.  But if you do need refreshments, the Lagada beach hotel is right there.  It has a bar by the pool where anyone is welcome to get drinks.  It's actually a very pleasant place to get a coffee or beer.  We spent a lot of time there, even though we were staying at the Delfini hotel (highly recommended) behind it.  Papakinou is a very long beach with organized and unorganized stretches.  It's pretty and pleasant, especially for a beach in a port town.  If I seem unenthusiastic about it, it's only because there are so many fantastic beaches on Milos that it's hard to get excited about Papakinou.

Sadly, this is my only picture of Adamas.  I took it from the ferry as we were coming in to port.

You can at least see part of the town, along with the wall I was referring to.  All the restaurants and shops start just beyond the right (east) edge of the picture.

As an aside, if anyone has any pictures from Milos that would help illustrate these posts, and you would be willing to share them, I'd be grateful.

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