Things to do in Kimolos

Kimolos is a ten-minute ferry from Milos and gets a small fraction of its visitors, which is the entire pitch: same geology, same light, far fewer people. It is small, dry and low, with one main village and a coast of quiet bays, and it has been exporting chalk since antiquity, which is where its name comes from. It still quarries bentonite. A working island rather than a scenic one, in other words, and that is the frame for everything below.

Chorio and its kastro. The village sits inland above the port, built around a sixteenth-century fortified core where the outer walls of the houses formed the defence, arranged in a rough square. Parts are ruined and parts are lived in, and it is being restored slowly. That mixture is the interesting bit: you walk through a defensive plan that is half archaeology and half somebody’s front door. Around it the newer village spreads out in whitewashed lanes with a handful of tavernas, and Psathi, the port below, has a few more along the water.

Skiadi, which is the island’s landmark and is a rock. On the high ground in the west stands a mushroom-shaped formation where softer stone beneath a harder cap has eroded away to leave an overhanging disc on a stem. It is a walk or a rough drive to reach it, and there is nothing there but the rock and the view. Say that plainly rather than selling it: you go for a geological oddity and an empty hilltop, and if that sounds thin then Kimolos as a whole probably will too.

Polyaigos, the empty island opposite. Boats run across to the large uninhabited island facing Kimolos, a protected area and one of the emptiest places in the Cyclades. That is the best day out here, and it is the same proposition as the island itself taken one step further.

The thermal water. There is warm water at the shore near the port, in the same volcanic family as Milos. It is a curiosity rather than a spa, and it is another reminder that this island and its famous neighbour are the same piece of geology.

Why the chalk matters. An island named for what it exports, still quarrying, is not a place that was built for visitors and then kept. That is why the village reads the way it does and why the coast has almost nothing on it.

How to use it. Two nights, or a day trip from Milos if that is all the time there is. Ferries run from Pollonia on Milos in about ten minutes, plus longer routes from Piraeus, and there is no airport. Our Kimolos guide has the practicalities, the beaches cover the bays, and Milos is the island you are almost certainly coming from.