A sailboat anchors at sunset off Mylopotas beach on Ios
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Tag: beach (page 16 of 18)
The soft golden sand and wonderful turquoise water at Mylopotas beach
Golden arc: What a great beach! For years, I heard and read that Mylopotas regularly ranks as one of the top beaches in all the Greek Islands. In May I found out why, when I finally got to see it for myself. My first glimpse of Mylopotas was from our hotel — the Hermes Ios — high up one of the mountains that ring Mylopotas bay, beach and valley. The beach’s broad golden arc of sand and the bay’s appealing clear turquoise water looked impressive enough from a distance. Up close, they looked amazing.
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Overlooking Kolitsani beach and bay from a nearby mountainside
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Scene of tranquillity: Beach lovers would probably consider the accommodations where we stayed on Ios in May — the Hermes Hotel at Agios Ioannis — to be ideally situated. To the left of the hotel, and visible from its breakfast room and bar, is the island’s most famous beach: Mylopotas, a gorgeous curved strand of golden sand. About a 20-minute hike down the mountain valley to the right is Kolitsani, a secluded small beach accessible only on foot or by sea.
Kolitsani beach spans the foot of a long, narrow bay with shallow turquoise water. There is a large white private villa and some 12-meter cliffs on one side of the bay, and a steep hillside covered with wildflowers, herbs and low scrub bushes on the other. The beach itself is divided into two separate sections by a rock outcropping and giant boulder that jut into the sea. One side has soft brown sand, while the other is covered in large stones and rocks.
Sign at the top of the trail that winds down the mountain to Kolitsani beach
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A hotel and resort area just a 15-minute bus ride from Mykonos Town, Platis Gialos is one of the most popular beaches on Mykonos island …
… with hundreds of rental sunbeds and a good selection of bars and tavernas at the front of hotels stretching along the sandy beach
Family friendly: If you want to spend time with your kids on a beautiful Mykonos beach that has a good selection of restaurants, bars and water sports facilities, but none of the raucous and raunchy partying that some of the island’s beaches are famous for, then you’ve got two excellent choices on the island’s south coast.
You could visit Ornos beach, which I profiled in my July 24 2011 post, or you could go to Platis Gialos beach. They’re not the only family-friendly beaches on Mykonos, of course, but they are two of the easiest to reach from Mykonos Town — especially if you don’t plan to rent a vehicle during your island visit and will be relying solely on buses or taxis to get around.
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The golden sandy beach near Gialos Port on Ios
Hello Gialos: When I told a friend back in the spring that we would be going to Ios, she wondered why. “It’s ugly!” she scowled. “Every time the ferry stops there on our way to Santorini, I think the island looks like a giant lump of rock.” We had seen Ios several times from ferries, too, but never considered it “ugly.” It always looked, to us, like a typical Cycladic island: a rugged landscape of rocky, almost barren mountains dotted with whitewashed cube-shaped buildings; beautiful beaches on sun-soaked bays along the coast; and gorgeous blue waters of the Aegean Sea all around. When we finally stepped onto Ios soil for the first time ever back in May, the island appeared much nicer than we had expected. Given its notorious reputation as a non-stop summer party place for kids in their 20s, we had thought Ios would be somewhat scruffy and dumpy, but it was anything but. In fact, it looked rather pretty.
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