We arrived on our first island of 5 today 1st September after a very nice smooth ferry ride on Sea Jet ferries from Athens. Our property is a short walk from the port in the town of Merihas, which is a delightful small port town, with a couple of supermarkets and plenty of restaurants and cafe bars.
To get to our airbnb it takes a bit of doing, 142 steps to be precise, and for me that was 284 due to having to carry both suitcases, which I couldn’t do in one go. However the view from our apartment makes it all worthwhile as you can see from the featured image on this post.
Day 1 we had a nice stroll around the town, did some shopping, organised a hire car and then headed to a beach on the outskirts of town, Martinakia beach. Spent a very pleasant afternoon here, and cooked up a nice fresh fish dinner with greek salad at home in the evening, watching the world go by and enjoying a wonderful sunset from our balcony, perfection!
Day 2 we got a little ferry boat across to the islands iconic beach called Kolona. It is quite unique as you can see from the images here, and today was quite windy so you do get a bit of a sandblast from time to time. There is a very good beach bar/restaurant at one end of the beach, so worth a visit there to get a break from the sun and a refreshing beer or tipple of your fancy.
Day 3 we hired a car which we’ll have for a couple of days. The road system here is pretty basic and the countryside very harsh and rugged, feels a bit other worldly. Don’t think they get a lot of rain in this place. Anyway we wound our way up and down windy roads to the south east of the island to escape the worst of the northerly winds. Found a beach called Megali Ammos which was quite nice and authentic, with a nice Taverna for lunch, and then drove to a little town nearby called Kanala which is famous for a couple of old churches. An interesting excursion to get a feel for the island.
Day 4 we hit the road again and visited two delightful towns called Chora (the capital) and Dryopida. Both very typical greek towns with white washed houses with blue shutters, little winding alleys with bourgenville trailing down the walls and so on. Lots of delightful looking cafes and restaurants as well, definitely worth a visit to these places. In Dryopida there is also a cave below the town which you can access easily from the edge of the town.
After that we went beach hunting again and found a nice one called Skylos. Access was a bit tricky as you can’t drive down the whole way so you have to navigate 150 odd rough steps at the end, but it was worth it so don’t let it put you off.
Day 5 we headed back by boat to Kolona beach and had another nice day there and then on our last day we just went to the local beach in Merihas before having a nice late lunch at the port and then got our ferry to Milos.
