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.

Welcome to my Milos blog!

I've just returned from a 6 day visit to Milos, Greece with my (Greek) wife and her family at the end of August.  Defying assumptions about travel with in-laws, it was a great trip.  I've visited a number of Greek islands now (Seriphos, Kea, Santorini, Syros, Naxos and Milos, in chronological order) and Milos is a stand-out favorite.  It's a volcanic island like Santorini, so the landscape is similarly spectacular, with lots of great beaches.  It also has a large permanent population (as opposed to purely tourist-catering populations that disappear in October) so there are plenty of scenic villages, full of friendly locals and great Greek food.  All around a winning combination.  In fact, in my list of all-time favorite Greek trips, I'd put this second only to Meteora.

Bonus features of Milos include an ancient amphitheater and the earliest Christian catacombs in the world, and of course Milos is the site where the Venus de Milo was found.

Here are a few pictures from around the island.

That's my wife about to get doused, if you're curious.

Hopefully that gives you a taste of what a beautiful island Milos is.  As I was checking out of our hotel, the owner's nephew asked me what I thought of Milos.  I answered something along the lines of, "Milos has to be the most under-rated island in Greece."  I immediately regretted the phrasing of my response.  What I was really thinking was, "This place is amazing! Why does everyone go to Santorini? Milos is better, but it's a secret?"  He seemed to understand.  He explained that with the huge mining operations going on on Milos and the associated revenues, the Greek government has never been willing to promote Milos as a tourist destination.  For the most part, I don't understand that thinking on the part of the Greek government.  I seriously doubt that increasing tourism on Milos would interfere with mining.  The mining areas are restricted to maybe 15% of the island, and they're largely off-limits to tourists.  On the other hand, with about 140 inhabited islands, I suppose Greece figures they have enough tourist destinations to leave Milos to the miners.

In coming posts I'll give more pictures and details for various beaches and towns around the island, with travel tips as much as I can remember them.  But this is also my own personal travel journal, so there will probably be a few more pictures of family members in these posts than some would like.  I apologize for that in advance.