Adventures in Greece | Milos Island | Day 3

Greetings from my living room while I sit here dreaming of summer vacay.  I figure there’s no better way to cope than to re-live a bit of our incredible trip to Greece and I’ve been meaning to write about our final day spent on stunning little Milos Island within the Cyclades island group.

In case you missed it, you can read about our first two days on Milos Island here and here.  And if you want to catch up from the very beginning of our Greek adventure, you can start here with my post on Athens.  Following Milos, we went on to visit Santorini, Naxos, and Crete, so I’ll be doing posts on those islands too.

After a busy first two days on Milos, for our final day we had planned to take it easy and leisurely tour the tiny harbor town of Adamas aka Adamantas, and that’s exactly what we did.

We started with a late breakfast, which was ultimately more like lunch at one of the many little cafes on the promenade.

Over the years of logging a fair amount of traveling under our belt, we’ve tried many different approaches for choosing restaurants.  Before there were all kinds of useful smartphone apps, such as Trip Advisor’s, we would generally just check out the menu and vibe of places we were passing by and go with the one that we were feeling the most.  Or occasionally, if we were in a place where we were struggling to find something appealing (which is rare), we might turn to our Rick Steves guide for assistance.  The only issue with the latter is you’re more likely to run into a bunch of other travelers, but the good news is they’re usually all the smart travelers.;) . With that said, we have used Rick Steves’ recs in places like Hvar Croatia….actually all over Croatia and didn’t find them to be touristy at all, and the food was amazing.

On another trip we took with some friends of ours, we relied on Trip Advisor reviews for all of the places we ate (not really Michael and I’s style) and frankly I found it exhausting and a bit of a buzz kill having to stop in the street and search for places when there were literally dozens of perfectly suitable restaurants or cafes surrounding us.  Not to mention reviews can be bought and are not always reliable.  Additionally, what often happened is we’d map our way to whichever restaurant we finally agreed on based on the description, walk our tired butts there, and take one look at the vibe and be like “NOPE.”  Then we’d have to start the process over again.  Thankfully we did find some gems this way too, but still, the process was was tiresome.

Since that Trip Advisor dictated experience, Michael and I tend to do somewhat of a hybrid approach.  We find a place where we like the menu and the vibe, and then occasionally we’ll check out the Trip Advisor reviews.  The reviews help mostly when we’re trying to decide between two places near each other.

While I’m a planner when it comes to these vacays, I do like to be spontaneous about the little things, and on this last day in Milos we just wanted to eat wherever we were vibing on and it worked out great:)

So long story long, our first stop for a meal that day was at Marianna’s Restaurant, and it didn’t disappoint.  Especially if you don’t mind the occasional kitty visit (pretty standard in Greece:)), and a great view of the harbor.  I had gotten a greek salad (like one of my favorite things to eat ever), and some stuffed grape leaves.  I didn’t bother taking photos of my meal, as this was probably my 10th greek salad and order of stuffed grape leaves on the trip already.

 

After breakfast we hiked up these steps to catch some panoramic views of the harbor and check out a picturesque little church at the top of the hill.  It wasn’t too bad of a climb, and we were greeted by more adorable kitties along the way.

After taking in the views and getting lost in the white-washed alley ways that are quintessential of the Cyclades, we were ready to get back in the shade for a bit.  We found another harbor-side cafe called Yankos to enjoy some refreshingly cold Mojitos.

While it’s not like visiting the Louvre, the Milos Mining Museum is still very very interesting if you love history, like me.

I don’t have any good photos from the museum, but photos wouldn’t do it much justice anyway.  The mining museum is located along the harbor, so it doesn’t take a lot of effort to pop in and spend an hour or so learning all about the extensive history of mining on this island, which dates back thousands of years.

To our surprise the museum is modern, (well air conditioned…thank goodness!) and curated very well with an accompanying audio guide.  We truly enjoyed our little visit.  My favorite part was looking at old photos and clothing from some of the more recent mining history (like a hundred or so years ago).  That’s usually my favorite part of visiting any museum or historical site…the old photos.  I love studying them and always try to mentally teleport myself to that time and place.  It completely fascinates me to imagine what the people were feeling or thinking as the photo was taken, or what day to day life entailed.  Milos Island’s mining history is pretty unique compared to the other greek islands, so I definitely recommend a stop here if you have the pleasure of visiting the island:)

By the time we finished at the museum it was dinner time and we were STARVING.  I really wanted to eat somewhere on the water, and we had passed a few places overlooking the harbor on our way to the mining museum, so without too much thought we settled on Trapatselis.

I just double checked and I don’t have a single photo of any of our food, but I remember being very very happy with it.  All I can say is that I’m sure I got some type of seafood (I mean, duh…the sea is right there.).

We skipped dessert at Trapatselis so we could enjoy yet another trip back to the incredible “waffle place” aka Milors, for more chocolate stuffed waffles with ice cream.

Yall, I just got done looking at the trip advisor page I just linked to and my mouth is literally watering looking at pics of their desserts, and I’m about to start googling to see if there are any waffle places remotely comparable here in Charleston.  Seriously soooo dang gooooood!!!

We capped off our last night in Milos relaxing with some cocktails at the rooftop lounge area of Aragosta.  They had a DJ who was on a roll with some good tunes, and that gorgeous harbor view made for a very happy Bree:) . We didn’t stay out too late because we were a bit exhausted from being outdoors in the heat most of the day, and from our previous day of sailing.

We didn’t have too early of a ferry ride to Santorini the next day, but still wanted to make sure we got up early enough to get checked out and have breakfast along the harbor while waiting for the ferry.  I had pre-booked all of our ferry transfers long before we left for vacay, so at least we never had to mess with researching any of the complex timetables, or have to buy ferry tickets during our trip.

Spoiler alert, I have more fond memories of our time on Milos than I do of our time in Santorini.  Don’t get me wrong, Santorini is breathtakingly beautiful, but stay tuned for my Santorini travel diary!

As always, let me know if you have any comments or questions about our stay, or basically anything about traveling…..I LOVE talking travel.  Clearly.

Thanks for reading!