Milos

Milos was valued long before it had towns. As early as 15,000 years ago people sailed here to cut obsidian, a sharp volcanic glass, and carried it across the Aegean and beyond. In the Bronze Age a town grew up at Phylakopi on the north-east coast, shaped by Minoan and then Mycenaean influence. Later Dorian settlers built a city on the slope between today's Trypiti and the bay at Klima, just below Plaka, which struck coins stamped with an apple and stayed independent. In 416 BC, during the Peloponnesian War, Athens demanded that neutral Melos join it; when the islanders refused, the Athenians besieged and took the city, killed the men, enslaved the women and children and settled colonists in their place.

After the Fourth Crusade Marco Sanudo took the island into his Venetian Duchy of the Archipelago, and a Catholic bishop was appointed in 1253; the Kastro at the top of Plaka dates from this Venetian world. The Ottomans took over in 1566 but left the islanders much self-government under heavy taxes. Russia occupied Milos for three years from 1771, and in the late 18th century the population collapsed to fewer than 500 before recovering.

In 1820 a farmer dug up the statue later known as the Venus de Milo at the site of the ancient city; it went to the Louvre. Milos was one of the first islands to join the War of Independence, and the war's first naval battle was fought off its coast on 11 April 1821. Cretan refugees founded the port of Adamas in 1841. Under German occupation, 14 civilians were executed in February 1943 for taking goods washed up from a sunken ship.

Plaka and its neighbouring villages share the plateau above the harbour, with whitewashed houses, chapels and windmills, and the islanders' Venetian past survives in the Kastro and in the island's history of both a Catholic and an Orthodox bishop. The Kastro and the sea-facing balcony of the Panagia Korfiatissa are the places to watch the sunset.

The island's most famous works of art are elsewhere: the Venus de Milo in the Louvre, the Poseidon of Melos in Athens and the Asclepius of Milos in the British Museum, with a copy of the Venus at the door of Plaka's museum. Milos also gave the ancient world the philosopher Diagoras and the poet Melanippides. Its volcanic landscape has drawn filmmakers, from the Greek film To Fili Tis Zois, shot in Plaka and Adamas, to the closing scenes of Bugonia at Sarakiniko.

Traditions are tied to the sea and the rock. In Klima and a few other coves, families still keep syrmata, two-storey fishermen's houses whose ground floors shelter boats in winter; around Trypiti, caves cut into the soft rock still serve as storerooms and stables. The uninhabited west of the island is a protected Natura 2000 area, and local records of herbal medicine, with Greek sage the most used plant, go back to the 16th century.

Plaka had 902 residents at the 2021 census, Adamas 1,268, and the whole island 5,193 — fewer than at its peak of 6,562 in 1928. Plaka is the seat of the municipality and houses the archaeological museum and most of the island's public services, while Adamas is the port and commercial centre.

Mining has shaped the island's economy for millennia and still does: bentonite, perlite and pozzolana are dug from open pits and sold worldwide, and sulphur was mined in the past. Grapes, cotton and barley are the main crops. Milos is a popular tourist destination in summer.

Life in Plaka is quiet and residential much of the year. In summer the island fills, the roads to Sarakiniko and the beaches grow crowded, and boats take visitors to the sea caves of Kleftiko; in winter many businesses close and the island returns to a small, close community linked to Athens by ferry and plane.

Milos cooking draws on a dry island's resources. Pitarakia, small fried cheese pies, are a local speciality, alongside karpouzopita, and tavernas in Adamas, Trypiti and Pollonia serve fresh fish, octopus and kakavia, the traditional fish stew. Local cheeses include manoura, preserved in olive oil, and anevato, a soft goat cheese used in pies.

The island's pantry is full of preserves: white pumpkin spoon sweets, sun-dried tomatoes and tomato paste, capers, kritamo (sea fennel) and preserved grape hyacinth bulbs, with homemade sesame snaps for something sweet; across Greece, spoon sweets like these are served on a spoon as a gesture of hospitality. Goat appears roasted in a wood oven or cooked in sun-dried tomato paste.

The volcano plays its part too. At Paliochori beach, volcanic heat beneath the seabed is used for traditional meals cooked in the sand. In Plaka the evening is spent in small cafés and bars, and in Adamas along the harbour front. Greek wines and homemade lemon liqueur appear on local menus.