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.