Day 24: Sailing to Sifnos

Trip

Greece 2022

Location

Sifnos 🇬🇷

Date

September 19, 2022

Sifnos is a small island. Roughly seventy square kilometres, it has mountains, beach cliffs and green valleys. Something for everyone in a very small package. But it’s surprising that the island, like many others in the Cyclades, is fully booked in July and August. Sifnos has invested in hiking with a network of trails crisscrossing the island. That’s part of what drew us there in the first place.

Milos was a welcome slow down after the exuberance of Santorini. Leaving it for smaller and calmer does feel like an upgrade. Our host on the other hand seemed to us to be disappointed with our departure. Not so much because we’re leaving but he didn’t get to connect in person with us. After Santorini we did do our best to avoid being sat down to an intro class to the island. We asked instead to use WhatsApp if we had questions during our day. Turns out Dimitri, our hotelier, likes giving the island speech and was disappointed not giving it and being part of our vacation. Something he finally got to share with Karine as we were checking out.

Egoist is superbly located on the port for us to have breakfast and wait for our ferry with coffee. Breakfast took just as much time as the ferry to Sifnos. The imaginatively Champion Jet 2, a catamaran big enough to carry cars, got us across islands in an hour. We stepped out of the boat a little after noon. Just enough time to drop our bag and go grab the car for our stay on the island.

We originally didn’t think of getting a car on any island thinking that public transport would be enough for us. We were wrong and for an island that’s geared for hiking, the bus system on Sifnos is barely adequate in peak periods and worse than useless outside of it. Since the trails we want to do not start from the port, having a car was a necessity.

We took the opportunity to use our car to go exploring. We first made it to Sifnos Laundry. The prime, and only, purveyor of laundry service on the island. It required Google Translate to make ourselves understood and, absolutely clear that we did not want our clothes dried in any way. Karine used every permutation of “No Dry” that she could and invented a couple of new ones. I appreciate her hard work ensuring that I don’t end up with extra small boxer shorts for the final leg of the trip.

Our adventure then took us to Kastro. A tiny village on a tiny hill with two to three-story houses making most of its walls. While it says it has an Acropolis, we were greatly disappointed to see a couple of wall segments that could have been made by a couple of drunken masons some time ago. The city and its small alleyways are charming with gorgeous views. Not withstanding the Acropolis disappointment we enjoyed ourselves.

Mischief managed, we headed back to our hotel and investigated our home town for the next two and a half days. We had to visit the tourist office twice to find it opened but it allowed us to get our hands on a trail map to plan our next days adventures. We also found the best bar for the Apéro. Isalos offered decent wine with an obstructed view of the bay with the sun setting over the water in the middle.

Dinner was at Araxovoli. Family owned and operated, we had the children or grand children doing service. It did lead to very uneven service like having to wait 20 minutes to get menus or getting the sides for our fish (grilled vegetables) with our starters. However, they did their best and the food was great all around. Getting a one-kilogram fish was a surprise but made us the most popular table with the local cat population, with the five cats patrolling the terrace at our table at one time. In the end we enjoyed our selves and it was delicious. Meeting lots of community cats on the way home seemed a good omen for our stay in Sifnos.