Milos island

Another famous yachting destination is Milos, a volcanic island in the Aegean Sea.

Milos is the southwesternmost island in the Cyclades group, 120 km (75 miles) due east from the coast of Laconia. The greater portion is rugged and hilly, culminating in Mount Profitis Elias in the west. Like the rest of the cluster, the island is of volcanic origin, with tuff, trachyte and obsidian among its ordinary rocks. Sunbathe on the luxurious deck of M/S DOXA II and watch the natural harbour, that strikes in from the north west so as to cut the island into two fairly equal portions, with an isthmus not more than 18 km (11 miles) broad, and is the hollow of the principal crater. In one of the caves on the south coast the heat is still great, and on the eastern shore of the harbour there are hot sulphurous springs.

Yacht to Antimilos, 13 miles north-west of Milos, an uninhabited mass of trachyte, often called Erimomilos (Desert Milos).

Travel with M/S DOXA II to Adamas, the harbour town. Watch from the deck the ascent to the plateau above the harbour, on which are situated Plaka, the chief town, and Kastro, rising on a hill above it, and other villages.

The position of Milos, between Greece and Crete, and its possession of obsidian, made it an important centre of early Aegean civilization. At the well-known Bronze Age site of Phylakopi on the north-east coast, excavations of the British school revealed a Minoan palace and a town wall. Part of the site has been washed away by the sea.