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
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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.