Our First Day in Milos -- In Search of the Beach!

We started our day off with breakfast at the local bakery. It was delicious... especially the chocolate croissant and the fresh orange juice. Who would have thought the best chocolate croissant I've had would be in Greece? Also, we need to make special mention of the orange juice. I'm not sure if the oranges are different here, but we always have the best orange juice in Greece!

It also doesn't hurt that this is your view while you are eating!

After breakfast we took care of some errands (buying all our Greek ferry tickets and renting our wheels for the week). The ferry ticket buying was easy, and now I don't need to worry about it for the next three weeks. Seats are reserved!

Getting some transportation was interesting. There is a place just down the street from our hotel that rents scooters and quads. We decided to get the quad because some of the roads are not "scooter friendly" to put it politely. They did not even mention the word insurance, and we ended up with a quad that had no parking break, gas gauge or speedometer. When we asked about the parking break they just said "use a rock", and when we asked about the gas gauge they replied "when the light comes on you have 4 km". Okaaayyyy.... They did say they had a newer one coming back tomorrow so we could come in and switch then. To be fair all the laxness was not only in their favour as the credit card machine wasn't working, so they just said  "come pay later". 🤷 I guess the very dominant part of my personality that is a rule-follower is going to just have to turn off in Greece. They don't seem to be particularly interested in rules here 😀

So off we went with our wheels!

The first beach we went to was the main reason I chose Milos as one of our islands for this visit to Greece. I had seen endless pictures of a beautiful swimming place called Papafragas Beach. It was well signed and had a parking area just off the road. Strangely, we couldn't figure out how to get to the beach from the parking, and there were other people also wandering around looking lost. Then we found this sign...

... which led down steep cliffs to this tiny beach....

... um, no... not climbing down there for that beach...

So we kept driving, and just around the corner came to another unmarked parking area, that had much easier access to the beach! This is the view from the top.

... it was a much easier walk down to the beach...

The beach was flat, and the swimming was excellent. Here is a photo of Steve in the foreground and me way in the back waving from the water 😀

After a nice swim to cool us off we continued down the road to the next beach which was Pachaina Beach. (The spelling may be a bit off, each word I see translated from Greek to English appears to have multiple spellings!)

This beach was okay, but we still preferred the previous beach (which we now call "The Beach that has no Name" in a thinly veiled GoT reference 😉 )

After a little walk along the beach we hopped back on the quad and headed to the next beach which is quite famous.

We had to make a short stop because a herd of goats was coming down the road and totally blocked our path!

Our next planned stop was Sarakinikio Beach. We missed it as we were driving down the highway, because this is the only sign that lets you know where to turn off.

Since we don't read Greek, we missed it! After driving for a while, I realized we had gone too far so we turned around. Luckily, the sign from the other direction is in Greek and English!

The beach was described to me as "like being on the moon". You can see why from the photos!

After walking down a long path you find the beach. You can either set your towels up on the beach, or along the water on the rocks. The water was quite shallow, and I heard not great if you have allergies due to the minerals in the water. We found it quite nice to swim in though 😀

We found it interesting to walk and look at the landscape, and also relaxed for a while and took another swim.

After our beautiful day exploring the beaches we headed back to Pollonia where we are staying. If you are on Milos I highly recommend this town. It used to be a fishing village. It has quite a few small hotels and guest houses, restaurants, a couple of small stores and even a delicious bakery all centred around a beautiful bay. Pollonia is the perfect town for relaxing!

We went out for a nice dinner at one of the restaurants lining the water, and enjoyed a quiet walk through the village.