September 5, 2009
Milos held lots of treasures for us, visually speaking anyway.
We started our first day on Milos with a taxi ride to Plaka. Once we got into the town, we looked around a bit, did some meandering through the white buildings and narrow passage ways, and then decided to climb the stairs to the Kastro (church). Oh what a hike. My my my, my LEGS were killing me. We met an Irish woman who passed us (I was huffing and puffing away while Nathan was ready to keep going), and she was wearing flimsy shoes while I was enthusiastically wearing my Ecos. I’m still not really sure how she did that, even though we found out during our conversation at the top, that she has made that climb many times. She’s crazy. ;)
I was stunned when we got to the top, took a ton of pictures, naturally. It was great that it was later in the afternoon too, so the sun wasn’t directly above us, it was giving us some directional light. Very pretty!
After the climb up, we thought walking down to the catacombs would be a spectacular idea. We walked for about 10 to 15 minutes down through a town called Tripiti and followed the signs to the catacombs. Here is where we faulted: Even though the sign said it was closed, we walked down the 50 stairs to get to the catacombs anyway. Whaddayaknow? It’s closed. DUH. Ha ha ha. Oh well, it’s all in the adventure… or so I thought.
I was so mad and exhausted after that climb, that Nathan left me on the old road to rest while he walked up to the Ancient Theatre, the supposed location of the finding of Venus de Milo. I was happy to stand in one spot and breathe for a few minutes shooting photos, of course. ;)
We kept walking down to our destination, a town called Klima, that supposedly had a colorful scenery of painted doors on the houses, and a beach with a scenic view. We walked for about 30 minutes from the catacombs down to Klima on the street, with sore toes and aching knees. We did make it though, and feasted on the scene with our sense of sight. I knew I wanted to be in Klima for sunset, so we had timed it perfectly!
I shot a lot of the waterfront from the dock out in the harbor, and the we walked up to what we think was the only restaurant in the town, the Panorama Restaurant. We were greeted by the hefty, not so happy looking, wife of the chef, and led to our table overlooking the coastline and small town. We checked out the menu and decided what we wanted to order… only to get a shake of the head from the waitress. She then went through their plentiful menu and pointed out about only 7 ot 8 of 50 items that they had on their menu. The cook, I think, the husband of the not-so-friendly waitress, came over to talk us into ordering the fish. He flashed a very nice (although missing a top tooth!) smile at me, and with broken English, told us, “It’s very good, very good fish.”
Nathan jumped at that idea right away, and after about 20 seconds of hesitation on my part, I agreed… fish it was! We also ordered tzatziki, a dip that we commonly find on gyros in the US, made of Greek yogurt, garlic, cucumber and salt. The cook thanked us immensely for ordering the fish, like it was his pride and joy. He also told Nathan while Nathan was returning from the bathroom, that his tzatziki was home made, definitely not store bought. It really was the best we would have on the entire trip.
Our fishes were served whole, fully cooked, but lying on the plate still holding on to their surprised 0 mouths and glazed over eyes. This is what went through my mind, “DANG IT! I knew I shouldn’t have ordered the fish, I forgot that this is how Europeans do fish. Now how do I cut this thing? I know I’ve seen it done on the Food Network.” Ha ha. I still didn’t do it very well and tried to ask the cook if he would filet it for me, but all he did was bring me an extra plate and a large spoon. Hmmm… not much luck.
We dined on fish and Mythos beer and enjoyed watching the sun set over Klima. It was a beautiful sight, and very enjoyable to me to hear four different languages being spoken right there on the veranda. English, Greek, Italian and German was spoken, all right within 20 feet of each other. Brilliant!
We took a taxi back to Adamas and called it a night in the sweat box of our room. Yes, there was an AC, but it cooled the immediate two feet in front of the unit, no where near where our bed was located. If not for mosquitoes or the noise of the center square (mostly from children playing on the playground across the street from our hotel at 10 PM), we would have left our french doors open all night.
September 6, 2009
The next day, which would have been Sunday the 6th, we beached it! After all of that walking, we wanted to sit sit sit all day on our rumps. We started with a taxi ride to Paleochori, a beach that was recommended by the Lonely Planet book, and by the hotel Portiani. Nathan was in need of a new book, so I asked the taxi driver if he knew of a book store in Paleochori that might sell English books. He looked at me, a little befuddled, not really understanding me, OR thinking I was a total moron. When we arrived at the beach, I then understood that it was the later. Paleochori consisted of a few tavernas on the beach with rooms and beach chairs to rent… and that’s about it.
When we were driving into the beach town, something was different about it that we didn’t expect. The beach was covered in fog! The cliffs of the beach were in their own little cloud of fog, and the tide was so high it was washing up to the foot of the beach chairs. Ugh… we thought that maybe we had made the wrong decision of where to spend our beach day… too bad our taxi had dropped us off and already bolted back to Adamas. Thankfully he had given us a piece of paper with the taxi company phone number on it… busses didn’t even attempt to come to Paleochori.
We decided since we were stranded to hang out for a while and look around. We walked along the rocky beach, through the water at parts, and came to a better part of the beach that hadn’t been consumed by the tide yet. I snapped a few pictures of the fog covered cliffs, and then it was gone… it dissipated within 10 to 15 minutes. Amazing! The sun was bright, the water was brilliantly clear but cold, and only Nathan got in. He threatened me a bit to get in… to no avail. ;)
We enjoyed lunch at the taverna located just up the stairs from where we had rented chairs, and then we headed out (via taxi) to another beach named Agias Kiriakis (Ag. Kiriaki). We had expected the same driver to come pick us up, not really realizing that the paper phone number he had given us was for the company and not his personal phone number. We were surprised to see a woman driver come to get us, and when she heard our destination (Ag. Kiriaki and NOT Adamas), she looked like someone had just thrown a drink on her at a bar. Her body language seemed to say, “Well, dang it. I just wasted MY flipping TIME.” Ugh, guilt consumed me, but whatever. They do pricing for taxis a bit differently on their small islands, they have a set fee for going from one place to another, they don’t use meters. SO, we ended up having to pay her extra, but OH WELL. Ha. We got to our destination, that’s all that mattered. Our taxi driver had us holding our breath on the way though… the road leading to and FROM Ag. Kiriaki was one lane, sunken down about 6 feet into the ground, and graveled, not paved. I don’t think I took a breath for about two minutes solid, and the whole time had my foot on my imaginary brake pedal in the back seat of the taxi. ;) I just knew we would end up colliding with an oncoming car. YIKES!
Ag. Kiriaki was interesting… it definitely was NOT a tourist haven, it was full of locals that knew how to drive through the entrance/exit to the beach. The only reason we ended up there is because the girl at the font desk of the Portiani had told us to go there if we had the chance. It was even smaller than Paleochori! It wasn’t a sandy beach, it was rocky. Full of stones from bright white smoothed over stones to black pebbles. It really was amazing to see, but man, my feet sure didn’t like it. Ouch! It was a catch 22 with my Reefs… walk with them on and get stones in your shoe, or walk with them off and walk ON stones. Either way wasn’t too fun. Ha.
There was a bar on the beach called the Banana Bar, a very cute little place that was tiki-like. There were Greeks swarming all over, either lying on their beach chairs, swimming in the frigid water, or playing paddle ball (the Greeks sure like their paddle ball!).
We hung out there for the rest of the afternoon, me in the shade, Nathan in the sun. I still got sun even though I was under the umbrella reading my Twilight series, covered in SPF 45. No wonder those Greeks are so tan! Geez.
Once we were ready to go, the same gal taxi driver came to pick us up (we’d have someone call for us from the restaurant- pretty good scheme!). I wasn’t all too happy that it was her coming back; she seemed peeved the first ride, and she seemed peeved to have to come back too. We did a very good job washing off our feet, but even on rocky beaches, it’s hard to remove ALL of the debris. She wasn’t too impressed with us… dumb Americans. Ha.
We navigated our way through the one lane exit/entrance of sunken gravel road again, and then we were on our way to Adamas. We spent our evening there, walking the coast line, watching the natives and the tourists, and feasting on what seemed to be the best pizza I’ve ever had in my entire life. Not joking. It was amazing… pan pizza style with a buttery garlic crust, topped with all kinds of goodies. I’m salivating just thinking about it. Ha.
We did some window shopping and browsed through a few stores, thinking about getting some trinkets for the kids, but never did buy anything.
We spent our last night in Milos in our sweat box of a room, falling asleep with cold bottles of water resting by our heads, on the backs of our necks. It was going to be an early morning with our boat to Santorini at 10:25.
September 7, 2009
The next morning, we woke up, had breakfast and got packed up to catch our boat at 10:25. We headed over to the port hauling all of our stuff to find out that our boat had been canceled due to a problem with the weather. What? Huh? What do you mean canceled? What do we do NOW?
We asked around and found out that we were supposed to deal with Sophia’s Travel agency, so we patiently waited in line for new tickets on the late ferry (much larger boat so the weather wasn’t an issue). After waiting for 20 to 30 minutes, it was finally my turn. Unfortunately, the system that sold the tickets was down, and the gal couldn’t issue the tickets. Awesome. This ended up being the case for most of the day, we kept checking back, kept waiting in line, and finally, Sophia told us to just come back at 8 pm. Poor thing was ready to pull her hair out from the stress of the day and dealing with people trying to get to places with canceled boats. I truly felt sorry for the lady!
The best part of our having to wait in line at Sophia’s was meeting a couple from England, honeymooners, Richard and Rachel. It was wonderful to be able to talk to a couple so freely, and listening to their accent was thouroghly entertaining. We found that we would all be on the same ferry that night, which was fun to look forward to!
Richard and Rachel told us to go to Sarakinico with our newly found day to explore more of Milos. They described it as “not to miss” and “you would love it, it’s great for photo” type of place. We were grateful for the tip, as we had NO idea what to do with the hours we now had to spend waiting for our ferry. We pointed them towards Plaka and the climb to the Kastro up top, warning them that it was a hefty climb, but worth it.
We dropped our luggage back at the hotel, rearranged some things and then headed out to Sarakiniko. We didn’t really know what to expect, but we thought we’d spend a few hours there, get some lunch, etc. We were wrong! It was incredibly windy, and the sand and salt painfully whipped against our skin and stuck to my photo filter immediately (we later found out that it was not windy and such when Rachel and Richard were there). There was nothing there, no settlement of any kind, no tavernas even! Someone could really make a fortune there setting up a grab-n-go type of facility!
Despite the painful whipping salty air and sand in our eyes, Sarakiniko was unbelievable! I have never seen such a site, etched cliffs of pure white rock, beautifully contrasting with the raging aquamarine sea water. It was gorgeous, and it was a lot of fun to climb around and explore. There were caverns and tunnels to walk through, and a very small beach of which some tourists, not us, had planned on taking advantage. They surely had their sunbathing aspirations squashed upon arrival finding the angry sea and wind.
We took the bus back to Adamas when we were done exploring Sarakiniko, and then took a rest for a while in the lobby of our hotel. We had internet access there, which was wonderful, and I even attempted a nap for about an hour. We still had hours to spare… what to do… what to do….
We decided to go see Apallonia, the other port town of the island. There wasn’t a whole bunch to see there, but we walked around the town anyway. There were churches on either end of the bay, so we headed around to the one that was on the West side. We found a beautiful scene overlooking the ocean, but the wind was too unbearable to remain for a long period of time. I got some pics, and off we went, back towards the main part of the town.
We took a taxi back to Adamas (we lucked out as there was one dropping people off in Apollonia, so we flagged him down to take us back), FINALLY got our tickets for the ferry (at a different travel agent) and had dinner at the restaurant by our hotel. I had pizza, still drooling over the thought of the pizza I had the night before at the adjacent restaurant. We enjoyed our meal and then we headed over to the boat.
We met up with the British couple and exchanged stories about our adventures that day. They were sad to hear that Sarakinico had been so windy, but happy to know we enjoyed it and got great photos. We all sat together on the ferry at a table that had chairs facing each other. We chatted nonstop for three plus hours about House and other similar interests until we got to Santorini. We laughed a lot, exchanging stories and opinions, and having a few beers, anything to keep us awake. We arrived in Santorini at nearly 1:30 AM. We were all extremely tired. We all laughed at how the books suggest taking a slow ferry to the island during the day to capture the whole beauty of Santorini. Oh well.
We said goodbye to our new friends with hopes of running into each other on the island. I hope that they are reading this and reminiscing about the trip! ;) Then we caught the bus headed for Fira and traversed our way up the cliff and over to Fira to find the Hotel Loucas. Finding the hotel at 2 AM was another story....
