Milos beaches: Sarakino

Sarakino beach in Milos is amazing.  It's completely unlike any beach I've ever seen.  I would guess that there's not another beach like it in the world.  Before we went, I saw some websites describing the experience of Sarakino as like walking on the moon.  As I was leaving Sarakino that day, I had a slightly different feeling about it.  It was more like if scientists in the '40's had erroneously reported the existence of a beach on the moon, then Walt Disney had put his wildest imaginings into recreating the lunar beach experience on Milos.  I also had the idea that Disney's artists might have created their lunar beach prototypes with soft-serve vanilla ice cream.  Check out the pictures below to see where I got these impressions.

Here you can see the sort of valley that runs down to the beach at Sarakino.  There are cliff-like walls on the left, vegetation along the bottom and rocky hills to the right (mostly blocked by our heads).  Directly to the left of my forehead you can see the small inlet of water at Sarakino beach.

That picture is taken from where you'll park, so it's a bit of a walk down to the water.  The walk is physically pretty easy, but it takes a bit of trial and error to find the best way down to the beach.

Above you can see my wife, her sister and both her parents working their way down.

And here you can see a close up of one of the lava sculptures (soft-serve vanilla?) on the way down to the beach, and in the background, a glimpse of the beach itself.

This gives a better view of how the water runs from the sea in the upper right, in a narrow channel inland to the lower left.  The full length of this channel is roughly double what you can see here.

This is taken at the end of the channel, looking back toward the sea.  So you can see that swimming isn't really Sarakino's strongest feature.  We didn't go in the water at all.  But it has a big shallow area, which would be good for small children.  And it's well protected from the wind, which means it's swimmable even with heavy winds blowing out of the north, like we had the entire week we were in Milos.  Those winds were a problem at a lot of other northern beaches, but it made for some visually dramatic waves at Sarakino, as you can see below.

Below you can see a little to the East of the above shot, where the waves break against much higher natural sea walls.

And below are a couple of shots from the far opposite (west) end of Sarakino.

These natural sea walls extend a kilometer or more from east to west, with just a short break to form the beach inlet of Sarakino.  On the way back from the west toward the main beach there's this "toilet bowl" formation in the lava.  (I apologize for not conceiving a more complementary nickname, but nothing else seems quite as appropriate.)

The seawater flows from the lower left, under the lava and into the bowl-like formation to the right.  The picture below is a close up view showing the tunnel the water flows through.

Here's are a few pictures along my walk back from the west end of Sarakino.

This gives some sense of perspective as to how expansive Sarakino is.  All those little specks are people exploring the area, and there was still quite a bit of Sarakino behind my back when I took this picture.  (I'm facing east here.)

I have to say, this last one was really surprising-- a door carved into the side of the cliff wall.  I walked in and the tunnel went back maybe 20 feet before turning left.  Then that tunnel connected up with a few others going deeper into the rock.  I couldn't really figure out why the tunnels had been built.  There seemed to be lots of long hallways, but no rooms.  Someone else at the beach seemed to think it was an old mine.  If so, it was a very small scale mine, which suggests it is probably very old.  I don't know.  The mine story makes more sense than any explanation I can think of, but it still seems odd.

That's all I have for Sarakino.  It really is the most amazing of Milos' many great beaches.  Even if you're not going to swim, make sure to set aside at least an hour to explore.

Tripiti and the Festival of Fire

Tripiti is one of the cluster of cities that make up the main residential area of Milos.  Plaka is the main city and capital, and Triovasalos is the third in the cluster.  For the most part, Plaka is the main event, and I'll have another post covering its attractions.  But on the evening of the 31st of August, Tripiti is definitely the place to be in Milos.

There is a religious festival in Tripiti that night, and as far as I can figure out, it's called "Fires of Kyriafgoustou".  It's a pretty typical Greek panigiri (the 'g' is pronounced like a 'y', like in gyro), centered on a particular church, in this case the main church in Tripiti.  There are lots of food stands in the street with beer & wine, live music, and the main event, the fire.  This is basically just a bonfire in the square next to the church.  What makes it interesting is that crowds of children spend all night making daredevil jumps over the bonfire.  Even with that, I'm not quite sure why it was quite so exciting.  When I went on camping trips as a child, I think we would occasionally jump over the fire for fun.  It wasn't nearly as exciting as this fire-jumping in Tripiti.

I think part the difference may be that I'm now an American adult and I have different ideas about what is safe and appropriate behavior for children around bonfires.  I didn't have a problem with this, but in America I think every child in this picture would have been taken from their parents by child protective services.  Not only were there children jumping over bonfires, but this went on until midnight or later, and most of their parents were not obviously parenting.  I'm sure they were around.  They just weren't being very vigilant guardians.

I'm sure the lack of heavy handed parenting was part of the fun for the kids too.  You've got crowds of kids cheering you on.  Tourists are taking pictures.  How can you resist that kind of excitement?

So the parents are partying and the children are playing with fire.  The Greeks do know how to celebrate.  If you're going to be in Milos in late August, I highly recommend working this festival into your schedule.

Here's a picture of the souvlaki stand next to the church, which you may or may not find amusing.

 A couple of final points on Tripiti.  There was an incredibly cute bar near this square.  Aesthetically, it looked like a really cute combination of English country pub and quaint Barcelona bar, built in the middle of a Greek island village.  We didn't go, and I don't even know what it was called, but if you have some time in Tripiti, look out for it.

Also, parking was brutal the night of this festival.  If you can figure a way to get there without parking in Tripiti, do it.

And finally, we ate at a restaurant called Glaronissia in Tripiti that night.  It was very cute, but it was the worst food we had our whole week in Milos.  The two main dishes I tried (one lamb, one goat) were nothing but fat and bone.  Supposedly the third dish in our party was quite good.  Given the generally great restaurants in Milos, I'd suggest you don't waste a meal at Glaronissia.

Milos beaches: Paleochori

Paleochori was, for me at least, the best all-around beach on Milos.  In our six days in Milos, we went to Paleochori three times. Some of the reasons we kept going back are pretty mundane - it has lots of easy parking, free chairs and umbrellas, a restaurant and a separate cafe/bar, and roughly a kilometer-long beach, so no chance of getting crowded.

The restaurant is called Sirocco, the food is solidly good, and you get to eat about 10 feet from the water's edge.  The most interesting thing here is something they called 'volcanic food'.  As I've mentioned before, Milos is a volcanic island with lots of geological oddities.  One of these oddities apparently is that volcanic heat gets quite close to the surface in some places, including the beach right in front of Sirocco.  So what they've done is create a sort of oven by burying a metal box in the sand there.  And their menu has a 'volcanic food' section with a few dishes that are cooked in this volcanic oven.  I thought it was a cool concept, but I also doubted it was true.  It sounded like something you would make up for the tourists.  But then on our second trip I had walked a ways down the beach away from the restaurant and I was standing at the water's edge.  As the waves washed the sand out from under my feet, they sank down a couple of inches and I had to jerk one of them out fast.  It was hot!  I stuck my toe down under the sand again to make sure I hadn't imagined it, but no, the sand got really hot just a couple inches below the surface.  It's a bizarre thing, but there is some serious volcanic heat coming right up to the surface in spots of Paleochori.  I no longer doubt that Sirocco is cooking food in the sand in front of their restaurant.  (I will however admit that most of the non-volcanic food we got was better than the volcanic eggplant dish we tried.)

Now let's get to the beach itself, which is what makes Paleochori such a great spot.  It's a snorkeling paradise, at least by Greek standards.  There's a huge variety of fish, and they're everywhere.  It's not the great barrier reef or anything, but it's pretty good.  And on top of the fish, there's another volcanic feature that makes the snorkeling really impressive.  The sea floor at Paleochori is leaking some kind of gas.  Tiny bubbles rise up from the sand throughout the beach, and some areas are really dense with them.  If you listen underwater you can hear the bubbling, and if the sun is shining through one of the fields of bubbles, it looks downright surreal.  Unfortunately, I didn't have a waterproof camera, so I didn't get a picture of it myself, but I did find a picture on the internet that someone took of the bubbles at Paleochori.

It's much more impressive in person...  I'm actually not much of a beach person, but I spent hours watching the fish and experiencing the bubbles there and would happily have spent more.  I was so engrossed by the underwater action that I got my first Greek sunburn from spending so much time face-down in the water.

I didn't have as much fun outside of the water, but I got a lot more pictures there.  There are some interesting rock formations off to the right (as you're facing the sea).

It sort of looks like the beach ends at that wall there, but you can swim past it as I was doing here:

And beyond it there's another good sized section of beach, which you can't quite see above.  If I remember right, there's seemed to be a separate way of reaching that beach (one that doesn't require swimming) but I'm not sure how you access it.

Swimming my way back, I got this shot, which I the closest thing I have to a picture of the main Paleochori beach.

At the far left, you can see just the edge of Sirocco.  And judging by this picture, there are two bar/cafes in addition to Sirocco.  I never went down the beach in that direction at all.

Some more rocks...

I'm realizing at this point that the pictures of rocks don't really add much.  I'll add a few more for the hard-core Paleochori fans out there.  For the rest of you, I'll just say this, take your snorkel gear and go.  It's an extremely pleasant place to spend an afternoon.

Klima: cute, but worth the trouble?

UPDATE: I've been told by some of my fellow travelers that I'm being too harsh on Klima.  They really enjoyed the trip.  It is worth pointing out that I was driving a (small) minivan, so some of my driving problems wouldn't be an issue for drivers of smaller cars.  Also, if you're the passenger, that's not an issue.  You'll have no problems at all.

Klima is a picturesque little spot just down the road from Plaka, the catacombs, etc.  I wouldn't want to discourage anyone from visiting, but there are a few things you should know before you go.  There is nothing to do there.  There is no beach.  There are no restaurants and there are no cafes.  You will drive there, you will take a picture and you will leave.  Here is the picture you will take.

Cute, no?

Now, the problem here, and the reason I won't be going again (unless it's on a motorbike), is that getting in and out of Klima is awful.  The drive is maybe a mile down from Plaka.  The difficulty is that it's a steep road, curving sharply down the mountain, with no space for two cars to pass one another for large stretches of that mile.  If you're in a car, and you meet another car, you or the other car will have to drive in reverse, up or down a winding mountain road, for maybe a quarter of a mile to find a spot where the two of you can pass each other.  So that's stressful.

Then, to make matters worse, when you arrive down in Klima, there are only maybe 20 meters where the road widens out for cars to park.  So maybe space for six or eight cars.  If those spaces are taken (they were when we went) you can't park.  Worse, you can't even turn around.  The road is exactly one lane wide until it ends at a cement landing that drops off into the sea.  You can see that landing in the picture above.  That cement block surrounded by the sea is the only place to turn around.  So you're going to do a three- or four-point turn on that block, wondering at every turn if your wheels are going to go off the edge.  It's totally doable, but not fun, and then you have that drive back up the mountain to look forward to.

So, is that picture worth it?  It wasn't for me, you'll have to decide for yourself.  And if you're on a motorbike, don't think twice. It'll be a nice half-hour trip for you.

Milos beaches: Tsigrado

Tsigrado is definitely one of my favorite beaches on Milos.  It's something of an adventure to get down to the beach, so it's not for everyone.  But if you can handle some light, rope assisted rock climbing, it's a very cool beach.  It's surrounded by (not very high) rock cliffs on three sides (which is what you have to climb down/up) and if you swim out a bit there are several caves in the cliffs to check out.  Here's the view from above.

 And from the water looking back toward the beach.

It's not a very big beach, so it could get crowded, but I think the climb keeps the crowds away.  If you look a bit left of center on the cliffs, you can see the channel carved in the rock that makes the climb down relatively easy.  You can also see the ladder at the bottom.  But let's take a closer look at the whole trip down.  Here's the entrance to the channel you climb down seen from the top of climb.

You can see the metal spike to the left with a rope attached to help with the climb back out.  It looks maybe a little intimidating there, but it's really just a small (3-4 foot drop) to a moderate incline that's pretty easy to climb up and down.  Here's the bottom of that incline, looking out at the beach.

And from here you step down onto the ladder to the beach.

Adventure complete.  It's really pretty easy.  There were lots of small children making the climb.  I would recommend bringing a backpack to this beach though.  Otherwise getting your beach gear in and out is a hassle.  I had full pockets, a snorkel mask and towel around my neck and the snorkel in my teeth.  That makes for an annoying climb.

But once you get down it's totally worth the trouble.  It's a beautiful beach with lots of rocks and fish for your snorkeling pleasure.  I'd say Tsigrado is second only to Paleochori for quality snorkeling on Milos.  And then there are the caves.  This is the closest one, just a few feet in from the shore.

Here's a picture of the left side of the beach from the shore.

At the far left, that little black slit at the bottom of the rocks is the entrance to the first cave pictured above.  Farther to the right, you see another dark triangle where the rocks meet the water.  That is the entrance to this cool rock formation.

It's sort of like a cave except you can swim in one end and out the other.

The remaining two caves (that we found) were farther out.  One is about 50 meters out from the beach on the left, the other slightly farther out and on the right.  I didn't have the strength to swim all that way with one hand holding the camera above water, so there are no pictures of those two caves. They were both really amazing though.  I highly recommend a snorkel and waterproof camera to make the most of them, but even without, the caves are well worth the swim. 

According to the owner of the hotel we stayed in, there's another cave even farther out somewhere.  (You'll have to ask locals about this; I didn't find out.)  And if you go through this cave it exits out onto another beach.  Sounds fantastic, but again, I'm not completely sure it exists.

Eating out: Milos cuisine

I know food isn't at the top of everyone's list of vacation priorities, but it ranks pretty high for me.  And here again, Milos delivers a great experience.  When we arrived at Milos, the guy at our hotel told us that easily 9 out of 10 restaurants on the island were very good or better.  After our six days on the island, we had to agree.

Let's be honest-- it's easy to find delicious food in Greece, so it would have been surprising if Milos didn't have lots of good food.  The only places where it gets a little tricky are spots with lots of tourists, where the restaurant owners know they'll have customers even if the food is mediocre and expensive.  Santorini and Plaka (in Athens) come to mind.  Milos definitely doesn't fall into this category.

What in particular can you look forward to eating on Milos?  Well, they've got all the usual suspects: greek salads, zucchini fritters, tzatziki, lamb, calamari, grilled fish, etc., etc.

What have we here?  From left to right: greek salad, grilled fish, fried eggplant, fried calamari (never had the whole squid intact before) and tzatziki (invisible on the white plate except for the olive in the middle).

So... mostly unremarkable, but there a few dishes unique to Milos, or nearly so.  If you've heard of Santorini's NTOMATOKEFTEDES (tomato fritters), they're also available on Milos.  They're similar to zucchini fritters, if you've had those, but with tomato instead.  It's basically tomatoes drained of juice, mixed with some onions, feta, flour and fried. Not really mind-blowing, but pretty good, and one less reason to endure the crowds of Santorini.

They also have something called KARPUZOPITA (watermelon pie).  It's a tart-like dessert where the filling is watermelon cooked down to a sweet paste.  This one didn't blow me away either, but I'm not really a dessert person. 

This is where we tried the watermelon pie (though you can't see it here).  It's a very cute dessert shop in Plaka (Milos).  My mother-in-law was thrilled, both by the desserts, and the fact that she had seen the shop (and its owners) on a television show.

One thing I did love about Milos is that Adamas had a couple of pastry shops with spinach pies, (several varieties of) cheese pies, ham and cheese pies and desserts.  When I made my first trip to a Greek island (Seriphos in maybe 1995), these pastry shops were the Greek standard for a quick breakfast or lunch.  They seem to have gone out of fashion, so I was really happy to find these places in Milos.  One of them in particular had really out-of-this-world delicious pastries.  It's called Mileiko and it's almost immediately where the ferry drops you off in Adamas.

The spinach pies and and bougatsa (sweet, creamy, filo-wrapped dessert) were amazing.  If I'm reading the last line of that sign right, they also had clam sandwiches.  Not really my cup of tea, but if clam sandwiches appeal to you, I'm sure theirs is delicious
.
Another unique food from Milos is a cheese called xynomizithra, or sour mizithra.  Mizithra is a reasonably common cheese in greece, but this sour version seems to be a local specialty.  The closest thing I can compare it to is the typical goat cheese you get in America, soft, creamy and a bit salty.  The xynomizithra is just a little creamier with a hint of sourness.  I also thought it tasted sort of like an extremely thick tzatziki, without the garlic.  Most restaurants in Milos offered it as an alternative to feta on Greek salads.  I highly recommend it, with the salad or without.

A final thing we noticed on Milos is that all the real restaurants (excluding souvlaki & pizza places) brought out free dessert for everyone after the meal.  At different restaurants, we were served ice cream, watermelon, yogurt with cherries, and lime mousse.  We thought it was a Milos tradition, but when we got back to Athens, we noticed that many restaurants there have started serving free desserts as well.  Our best guess is that it's a product of the economic crisis.  The restaurants are offering a 'sweetener' to encourage people to eat out despite the hard times.  I have to say, I like the new tradition.

Catacombs and Ancient Theater

The Christian catacombs of Milos are located just outside the town of Trypiti.  They date from the 1st to 5th centuries AD, which suggests the possibility that they're even older than the catacombs of Rome.  They're not nearly as extensive or elaborate as the catacombs of Rome, but I think that gives them a unique eeriness.  I haven't been to Rome, so I'm just making comparisons based on pictures.  The Roman catacombs are enormous, and elaborately decorated in places, clearly the product of a large, wealthy society.  The catacombs in Milos seem to be the work of a small, early Christian community.

While the catacombs originally served as a burial place for this group of early Christians, it later provided a place for worship and refuge as persecution of Christians by the Romans became common.  It is estimated that 2,000 or more individuals were buried in these arched openings (the technical term is arcosolia) in the walls of the catacombs.

This larger arcosolium was made for an entire family.

While this one held an adult and infant.

Unfortunately, the catacombs had been raided by the time they were rediscovered in ~1840.  And despite a scientific excavation around this time, they weren't closed and protected until somewhere in the 1930-1940 time frame, according to our tour guide.

In the interim, at least one early graffiti artist, Mevel Mussou, visited the catacombs in 1874.

This picture was taken just outside the modern entrance to the catacombs.  It looked like there had been arcosolia carved into the stone outside the catacombs.  I can't imagine that's the case, which makes me wonder if this area hadn't been enclosed at an earlier time.

In any case.  Not far from the catacombs is the ancient theater of Milos.  Unlike for the catacombs, there aren't many signs pointing the way and there's nowhere to park.  We just walked from the catacombs parking lot.

I suppose I could have gone for a closer look than this, but it wasn't very approachable.  Also, there was (archeological?) work being done on it and it was partially covered in scaffolding and tarps.  It didn't really seem worth the trouble at the time.

And for you Venus de Milo fans out there, this area is where the statue was unearthed by a Greek farmer in 1820.  Nothing to look at now though.