EPILOGUE - GREECE - THE AEGEAN - MILOS

 

Milos (Pop 4,977) is 155km or 3hrs from Athens and only one hour from my last island of Sifnos. The island is 21km long by 14km wide with highest point at 748m.

 

Milos is mostly famous for the discovery of the famous VENUS DE MILO statue now in the Louvre in Paris. Seems like all of Greece’s bets antiquities are sitting in museums outside Greece !!! It is also famous for its volcanic ocean formations and caves and the mining of porcelain, which is a major industry with its own dock to ship around the world.

 

Milos may be close to Sifnos but it is completely different. It is volcanic with a huge harbour that is the remnants of an ancient caldera. It is composed of two halves – east and west, much like Maui in the Hawaiian islands! The east and centre are very fertile and flat whilst the west is very mountainous and remote with terrible dirt roads only accessible by big 4WDs or motocross. The coast along the west is famous for its unusually shaped basalt formations and caves. The best way to see the west coast is by a day boat trip, which I did and was the highlight of my trip. I swam 1k in 16C water around the rock formations and caves of KLEFTIKO – the best place to visit on the island. The other terrific spot is the CASTRO (Castle) on top of PLAKA hill at 455m, near the capital – you can see the entire island from this one spot – a photographer’s paradise. The roads to Plaka and in the east are very narrow and broken – best seen by scooter or small car. I hired a car so I could recover from my Sifnos scooter incident. I finally ran my first 10km on the morning of my departure – so glad to be back on the road…

 

Enjoy the island of Milos.

 

EPILOGUE - GREECE - THE AEGEAN - SIFNOS

 

My first day in Sifnos was both terrific and tragic !!!

 

Terrific because I covered the whole of the island in just two days with a 50cc, 150kg motor scooter or vesper. Tragic because at the end of my first well travelled long day my scooter fell on my right calf, as I tried to pull it out of a ditch, putting me out of action for running on Sifnos. My dream of running on every island was shattered. I should be OK for the next island…

 

Sifnos (Pop 2,625) is 130km and 2.5hrs direct by fast boat from Athens. The island has a 70km shoreline (15km long by 8 km wide) and 680m highest peak. It is very mountainous and reasonably green in the middle but quite bare on the edges. It is famous for its pottery and ceramics. Sifnos also has the most churches of any island = 360, almost one for every day of the year !!!

 

Best beaches were Plati Gialos and Vathi. I swam 1km at Plati Gialos because the water is still cold at 17C and I was the only one in the water. The water is crystal clear and usually warms up by end May. The great thing about May is there are hardly any tourists. Those that I saw were mainly older couples and groups from France and Germany. All the islands were heavily hot by COVID but starting to recover – they expect this summer (June-August) to be swamped with tourists desperate to travel.

 

Dishes that are specific to Sifnos is REVITHARAS (Chickpea soup with lemon) and MASTELA (Boiled then 4hr oven-cooked goat or lamp served shredded with oven potatoes). Had both and they were filling and delicious – see them in the photos below.

 

I drove 95km+ all over the island over two days to bring to you the very best of it !!!  Not only did the scooter fall on my leg but it conked out just 7km from home on the last day and I had to walk to capital and catch a taxi back !!! Golfin luck !!!

 

Enjoy the island of Sifnos…