Adamas in Milos

 

We came back from the island of Milos on Wednesday, having spent a week there.

 

 

 

One of the first things we saw when we got off the boat was this:

 

 

 

 

 

the plaque reads: Milos sighed and called out: 'Mother' and Crete answered: 'I am here, daughter' , by G. Saridakis.

 

We were intrigued.

 

Adamas or Adamantas (meaning diamond) is the main harbour town of Milos. Refugees from Crete who fled the island to escape Ottoman rule, established the town of Adamas in the years between 1824 and 1830. The ties with Crete remain strong to this day.

 

 

 

 

 

It's a classic Cycladic town with white-washed houses, dominated by the Holy Trinity Church which dates back to the 17th century. 

Detail of Cycladic architecture

A modern take of the traditional Cycladic house

A windmill that was very near where we were staying.

The centre of the town is full of cafeterias, restaurants and shops and was very busy.

We were not expecting to see so many tourists in mid-September but the town was teeming with mainly Italians, but also French and Greek holiday makers.






The centre was too commercialised and busy for us

but we discovered a group of tavernas on the edge of the town, very near where we were staying and this is where we spent most of our time.

Those tavernas are by the sea






affording delightful views of the whole bay,

the boats that were moored there,

the mountains across the bay,

little fishing boats,

 

 

and huge expanses of water.

Bliss!





Like most islands in the Cyclades, Milos is rocky and quite barren during the summer, but next to the place where we were staying was this field full of these purple flowers

looking closer.

We were intrigued by this boat as we had never seen one like it before. Were these funnels? We later found out they were loading cranes.

During one of his morning walks Ken saw the boat anchored next to the loading platform you can see in the distance and we think that what they were loading was cement from the nearby cement works which are situated just outside the town.

The town is famous for its healing springs and people go to the baths to enjoy the health benefits afforded by the waters.

The baths were unfortunately closed both times we tried to visit but I have to say, we did not try very hard - we were always on our way to somewhere else.






Near the baths is a small bay within the large bay of Adamas

with a small beach

 

and geese that are very vocal.

 

 

 

This is also where the air-raid shelter that the German occupiers forced the Greek population of the town to build to protect them from British bombs during WWII but this will be the subject of a different post.

 

 

 

The town has a fantastic bus service and most days we took advantage of this and travelled all around the island

but Adamas was our base, the place we would return to

and we spent most evenings here

One of the things I really liked about Milos is that the majority of the boats were of a modest size - none of the big yachts, rich men's playthings, testimonies of the widening gap between rich and poor, that you see in a lot of other Greek islands.