There's just one drawback to staying in a romantic old windmill on a remote
Greek island. You guessed it - the wind. We tend to forget that those
picture-postcard white towers were put where they'd catch the best of the
breeze.
And though the Doctor's Windmill, on Kimolos, is now sans sails and has
been turned into holiday apartments, climate change wasn't part of the
conversion. When the wind blows here, you know about it.
But the windmill's pluses are many: you have an almost-all-the-island view
from your terrace; you can never get lost because you can see it from miles
away; and you do feel quite privileged to stay there.
Particularly because the Doctor's Windmill was home for more than 50 years to
Dr Stelios Logothetis. He treated patients not only here on Kimolos but on
the neighbouring islands of Milos, Folegandros and Sifnos.
When he died at the age of 99, his grand-daughter Anna was six - now she is
the young woman in charge of the windmill and its five apartments.
The wind pinned us down for a few days in this southwest corner of the island,
leaving us running after errant hats and struggling to walk around without
cups of tea levitating from trays. But the large, sandy beaches of Aliki,
Bonatsa and Kalamitsi remained sheltered as well as shaded, providing relief
from this early mini-meltemi in mid-July.
And when the wind dropped, we were able to discover the idylls of the island:
from the cool and labyrinthine alleys of the chora (main hilltop village) to
the dramatic sun-cooked mountainsides, over which we hiked to the secluded
beaches of Monastiriya and Soufi in the north.
Although it was high summer, there were few tourists here. Even Greeks, said
Anna, can look puzzled when you mention Kimolos (and UK visitors are almost
unknown). Only when you mention its bigger sister island of Milos do people
get an idea of where it is.
Nights on Kimolos were still and beautiful beneath a star-filled, unpolluted
sky. We would sit either in a quiet taverna on the beach, a couple of feet
from the water and the moored fishing boats, or at the restaurant in the
chora's central square, where local children played the old-fashioned way -
swings, roundabouts and football - a chaotic melee of joy.
At the other end of the chain of the western Cyclades is the island of
Kythnos. Ferry-wise, it is four or five hours north of Kimolos and just
three hours from Athens - yet a world away from the capital's intense buzz
and oven-like heat.
It's ringed with at least 20 beaches, almost all of them excellent and some of
them sublime. In less than an hour's hike from the little port of Merihas -
with its bars, tavernas and tat-filled tourist shops - we swam and sunbathed
all day on a perfect beach that we had totally to ourselves. And the water
here was so clear that it seemed unreal, even in this island of wonderful
swimming places.
On Kythnos, we stayed just outside Merihas, at Villa Elena - quite different
from the Doctor's Windmill but equally romantic. At the top of the steep
cliff above the small bay of Martinakiya, it was reached by a precipitous
stairway - at night illuminated by little lights that gave it the look of an
enchanted citadel.
We stayed at Chora in Folegandros a couple of years ago. It was, indeed, idyllic. Although it took 8 hours from Pireaus on a jet-catamaran, our three days there were unparalleled. From the window in our hotel which was built on the site of a 12th century castle (as was the rest of the village), there was an 800 foot sheer drop to the surf pounding on the rocks of a cove below.
At night there was a panagyri, or festival. Local musicians played ethnic instruments and sang popular demotic songs while the villagers, other islanders and tourists like me danced the night away.
You could get quite decent espresso and capucino, wonderful seafood and rabbit stew at many restaurants there in Chora.
By day we took the bus to the beach at Agios Nikolaos and hiked in about a mile to an inaccessible beach where there were a couple of warring restaurants. The one we chose was perched above the beach and served fish that we had observed being brought in from the nets minutes before.
Leon Karahalis, Miami, FL