Milos: what to see, where to stay and how to get around

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Everything on this walk happened within four hundred metres of itself: an ancient town on a slope, a Roman theatre, a Christian burial complex cut into the rock below it, and the field where a farmer found the most famous statue in the world and did not keep it. Two hours, and the last part is downhill on a rough path — shoes, and go before eleven.

A short history of Milos

As early as the Neolithic period people sailed to Milos to quarry obsidian, a volcanic glass from which they made tools. In 416 BC Athens conquered the island, killed its men and sold the women and children into slavery, and Thucydides described the negotiations that preceded it in the "Melian Dialogue". In 1820 a farmer on the island found the statue of the Venus de Milo, which is now in the Louvre. The island is volcanic, and most of the rock formations on its beaches were created by ancient eruptions.

The ten best sights in Milos

1
Plaka
The capital, three hundred metres up and out of sight of the sea — built that way against pirates
2
The Kastro
Venetian, on the highest rock, and the climb to it takes fifteen minutes
3
Panagia Korfiatissa
The sunset terrace of the island, and it fills forty minutes before
4
Tripiti
The village on the ridge above the ancient town, and both the theatre and the catacombs are below it
5
Klima
Boathouses built into the rock at the waterline, painted so a fisherman could find his own
6
Mandrakia
A working fishing cove with the same painted boathouses and one taverna on the rock
7
Firopotamos
A small bay with a chapel, a beach and the boathouses, and all three fit in one photograph
8
Plathiena
The sheltered beach on the north coast, twenty minutes on foot from Plaka
9
Sarakiniko
White volcanic rock worn smooth into a surface people compare to the moon; no shade at all
10
Papafragas
Three sea caves under a collapsed roof, reached by a steep cut in the rock

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Tours in Milos →

A guide in your headphones: open the walk on our site, walk from stop to stop, and at each one your phone tells its story. No guide, no group, and free. This is the first walk in Milos:

Free walking tours in Milos

The statue that left

Plaka · The capital sits three hundred metres above the sea and cannot be seen from it, which was the point: for centuries the Aegean was raided, and a town you cannot see from a ship is a town that is not attacked. The lanes are too narrow for a cart and they curve so that nothing can be seen down them.
The Kastro · The Venetians built this on the highest rock on the island in the thirteenth century, and the houses of the town were built as its outer wall — their backs face outward in an unbroken line with no windows on the ground floor. The fortification is the houses themselves.
Archaeological Museum · The case to look at is the obsidian. Milos was the source of it for the whole eastern Mediterranean, and Milian obsidian has been found on the Greek mainland in layers dated to about eleven thousand years ago — which means people were crossing open sea to get here, in boats, before farming. It is the earliest evidence of sea trade anywhere in the world.
The Ancient Theatre · Cut into the slope facing the bay, with marble seating from the Roman period over an older Hellenistic theatre. It held about seven hundred people, which was a large share of the town, and it is still used — a performance here is watched with the caldera behind the stage.
Where the Venus was found · In 1820 a farmer digging near here opened a niche in a wall and found a marble woman in two pieces. A French naval officer arranged the purchase, the statue reached Paris within the year, and it has been in the Louvre ever since. The arms were never found. Greece has asked for it back more than once, and the answer has always been no.
The Catacombs · Nearly three hundred rock-cut tombs in galleries under the hill, holding something like two thousand burials from the first centuries of Christianity. They were found in 1840 and they are ranked with Rome and the Holy Land among the most important Christian catacombs in the world — on an island of five thousand people.

A bay that is a crater

Milos is a volcano that blew out one side of itself, and the sea came in through the hole. That single fact explains the island: the bay is one of the best natural harbours in the Mediterranean, the rock is ash and lava in colours no other island has, and the ground is still worth money — mining, not tourism, is what the island actually lives on. Half a day with a car, and the mines are the part nobody expects.

Adamas · The port sits inside the crater. The bay is nearly closed, deep, and sheltered from every wind, which is why there has been a harbour here since the Bronze Age and why both the Russian and the Allied fleets used it. The town itself is new by Greek standards — it was founded in 1824 by refugees from Crete.
The Mining Museum · Milos is the largest producer of bentonite in Europe and a major source of perlite, and the quarries are working now, today, a few kilometres from the beaches. The museum exists because the island decided to say so rather than hide it: the money here is in the ground, and the tourists are the newer business.
Sarakiniko · This is volcanic ash that fell, hardened into soft white rock, and has been worn by wind and sea into something with no soil, no plant and no shade on it. The name comes from Saracen pirates who sheltered here. It is also the one place on the island where the rock is white enough to burn your eyes at noon.
Phylakopi · Three cities on top of each other, the oldest from about three thousand BC, excavated by the British School from 1896. It was a serious Bronze Age town — walls, a palace, Minoan pottery — and it was rich because of the obsidian. Half of it has fallen into the sea.
The Sulphur Mines · Sulphur was mined on this shore until 1956, when the price collapsed and everyone left in the same week. The buildings, the ore wagons on their rails, the chutes down to the loading pier and the workers’ rooms are all still standing where they were abandoned, and nobody has cleared any of it.
Zefiria · This was the capital of Milos until the eighteenth century, a town of five thousand people with twenty churches. Then the population left — the accounts blame plague and poisonous fumes rising from the ground, which on a volcanic island with sulphur under it is not an unlikely story. They moved up to Plaka and the plain was left to the fields.

The painted boathouses

Along the north coast the villages are not villages but syrmata: a garage at sea level with a door wide enough for a boat, a room above it, and a ramp into the water. They were built so a fishing boat could be pulled out before a winter storm, and they are painted in strong colours because from the water a man needs to know which one is his. Two hours and a car, and swim at the end.

Klima · The most photographed of them, and the one where the arrangement is clearest: the sea comes to the door. The ground floor was the boat’s and the family lived above it, and a few are still used exactly that way while the rest have become rooms to let.
Firopotamos · A bay with a beach, a chapel and the boathouses in one small curve, which is why it appears on every poster of the island. It also has the one thing Klima does not: sand you can actually swim from.
Mandrakia · Still a working cove — the boats here go out — and the taverna on the rock buys from them. This is the one on this coast where you are looking at a job rather than at a view of one.
Plathiena · The sheltered sandy beach of the north coast, twenty minutes on foot from Plaka down an old path, and the walk is why it stays quieter than the road beaches.
Papafragas · Three narrow sea caves under a collapsed roof, with the water coming in through a slot in the cliff. Pirates are said to have moored inside them out of sight, and standing above it you can see exactly how that would work.
Pollonia · The fishing village at the north-east tip, and the second port of the island: the small boat to Kimolos crosses from here in twenty minutes, several times a day, all year. It is also where people stay who want the island without the port town.

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Getting to Milos and getting around

Milos Airport · Twenty minutes from Adamas, and only small propeller aircraft from Athens land on it
Adamas Port · Every ferry docks in the caldera itself, and the bay is the crater

Cheap eats in Milos

Milos grows almost nothing — the island is rock, ash and mine — so the food is what the sea brings and what keeps. Two things are properly local: koufeto, a sweet of pumpkin boiled in honey with almonds that is served at weddings and nowhere else, and pitarakia, small cheese pies fried rather than baked. The going rate on the island for a souvlaki is a few euro and for grilled fish on a quay several times that. These are counters and quays, not restaurants with a view.

The port lane, Adamas · A few euro, standing, and open until the last ferry
Mandrakia quay · The boats land here and the taverna buys from them
Agia Kiriaki · One taverna at the end of the road, on black sand
Pollonia · Fish by the kilo in the afternoon, by the small harbour
Plaka · The bakery here opens at six and sells the koufeto
Tripiti · Two tavernas on the ridge, and both face the bay
Empourios · A single taverna on the water, reached by one road
Provatas · The beach taverna on the south coast, open in season

Museums in Milos

Four rooms on an island of five thousand people, and between them they hold the earliest sea trade in the world, one of the three great Christian catacombs, and a working mining industry. The statue itself is in Paris.

Archaeological Museum · In Plaka; the Venus here is a plaster cast and the museum says so
The Catacombs · Guided entry only, short visit, and bring a light jacket
Mining Museum · Small, honest, and it explains the quarries you drive past
Ecclesiastical Museum · In the old church by the port; the icons came from Zefiria
The Ancient Theatre · Open, free, and performances are held in it in summer

Nature and day trips near Milos

Milos has the strangest ground in the Cyclades and it is all volcanic: white ash worn smooth, striped cliffs of red and yellow, hexagonal basalt columns in the sea, sand that is warm from below. There is almost no soil and almost no tree, and that is why you can see the geology instead of a landscape on top of it.

Sarakiniko · Go at seven or at six; at noon the white rock is unbearable
Firiplaka · Red, white and yellow ash in bands straight above the sand
Paliochori · Dig your hand into the sand at the far end and feel it
Glaronisia · Hexagonal basalt out of the water; by boat only
Profitis Ilias · The island’s high point, and the whole caldera from it
Chivadolimni · A salt lagoon behind the beach; flamingos stop at it
Polyaigos · Uninhabited, protected, and reached only on a boat trip

Things to do in Milos with kids

Milos has something close to eighty beaches, which is more than any other island this size, and they are not interchangeable: some are reached down a rope, some have no shade at all, and some are warm from the ground. These are the ones that work with children.

Provatas · Shallow, sandy, a road to it and some shade
Firopotamos · A small bay, flat water, and the boathouses to look at
Plathiena · Sheltered from the meltemi, and sand the whole way
Agios Sostis · Inside the bay, so the water is flat every day
Papafragas · Look from above only — the climb down is not for children
Phylakopi · A Bronze Age city you can walk through, and it is small

Holy places in Milos

The churches here are small, white and everywhere, and two of them are not ordinary: the catacombs under Tripiti, and a chapel at the far west end of the island that people still walk to. Modest dress, and several are opened by a keyholder in the village.

The Catacombs · Guided, cool inside, and the oldest thing on the island
Panagia Korfiatissa · On the cliff edge in Plaka; the terrace is the sunset
Agios Ioannis Siderianos · At the far west end down a rough track; take water
Agios Konstantinos · On the north-east shore, facing the channel to Kimolos
Zefiria · The abandoned capital; a few churches still stand in the plain
The Ecclesiastical Museum · What was carried up when Zefiria was abandoned

Nightlife in Milos

There is no club on Milos and nobody is pretending there is. The evening is the port lane in Adamas and the terrace in Plaka at sunset, and that is the whole map. The island goes quiet early, and in winter most of this is closed.

Plaka at sunset · Forty minutes before, or there is nowhere to stand
The port lane · Bars along the water, and they fill after ten
Pollonia · Quieter, by the harbour, and the tables are on the sand
Tripiti · The ridge, with the bay below and almost nobody on it
Sarakiniko at night · The white rock under a full moon, and bring a torch
Mandrakia · One taverna on the rock, open late in summer only

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Frequently asked questions about Milos

What is there to see in Milos?

The top sights in Milos are Plaka, The Kastro and Panagia Korfiatissa. The full list on this page has 10 sights, each with a photo and a short note.

How many days do you need in Milos?

Three to four days are enough to see the best of Milos without rushing, including at least one walking tour.

Is there a free walking tour in Milos?

Yes. sleepntrip has 3 free audio walks in Milos, with no guide and no group: your phone tells the story at every stop. The first one: The statue that left.

How do you get to Milos and get around?

The main ways are Milos Airport and Adamas Port. Full details are in the transport section on this page.

Where to stay in Milos, and for how much?

sleepntrip shows only rooms in Milos that meet nine conditions: a good location, high guest scores, cleanliness, and a price of up to $80 a night for two. Pick your dates and see what is free.

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