After all our – well-documented – travels to get to Milos, in Greece, it seemed only right to cover why we went there, what we thought of it, what did we do, and how did we end up there in the first place?

My original plan was to do a few days in – I know, no judgement please – Santorini, but both a combination of poor social media reviews (well, maybe not ‘poor’, but alluding to it being crammed, a tourist mecca, etc. etc.) and what I imagine to be total horror concealed well but not perfectly by Steve, our travel advisor, put us right off and we ended up looking at a few pictures after Steve suggested Milos, and deciding that was the choice made. And we were very, very glad we did.

The day after we arrived, we booked ourselves onto a round-the-island yacht trip – a long day, no doubt, but definitely a highlight. I was very pessimistic about how slammed the boat would be, and whether the free food and drink would be tourist mush, but I was quite wrong, and it was all very pleasant and intimate. For those interested, I’ve no affiliate link because I’m just not clever enough, but we went with ‘Sailing Milos’ and it was between them and ‘Odysseus A Cruises’.

Due to high winds, the ‘round-the-island’ part became a ‘nearly-round-the-island-and-then-back’ instead, for which they proactively refunded us a small amount – and also offered an additional discount for paying in-person with cash, instead of using the credit card I’d booked with.

Incidentally, discounts for paying in cash instead of card seemed to be a really common thing across the board – if someone told me they were going tomorrow morning, a trip to the ATM beforehand would be the thing I’d most suggest. Not that anyone was angsty about taking card, they just…really didn’t want to if it could be avoided.

Our boat trip took us around the island, passing Klima first, and onwards before stopping at Plathiena Beach for our first dip in the ocean (cold, when you’ve otherwise been lounging on a boat). My skepticism peaked, because there was another boat there as we arrived, and I waited for what I expected to be an onslaught of other boats and hordes of tourists, but it actually never happened and the other boat left – a theme throughout the day.

Breakfast was served afterwards, and both it and the lunch were actually freshly prepared by our hosts, a couple, in the galley while we all went off swimming.

Before long the booze started flowing and – again, in fairness to our hosts – never stopped for the remainder of the tour. Meanwhile, we also stopped at Sarakiniko, Pollonia and Polyaigos. Overall, it was an action-packed day and we hobbled (well, staggered, perhaps) off at the end.

Our original plan was to laze about our very lovely hotel the next day, and wander around town, but having seen so many sights the day before that we’d have loved to see again, and knowing that a) we had already enjoyed plenty of good food – and had the remainder of our trip’s culinary outings already planned and b) that town was only a stones’ throw away from the hotel and walkable anytime, we decided to rent a car.

Make renting a car important advice number two for a trip to Milos – it had, in full disclosure, been suggested before we left, but concern over who was going to drive on the wrong side of the road without plunging into the ocean meant we chose to quietly pretend we didn’t hear that advice.

Looking for a car to rent at 30 minutes’ notice is not recommendable, but we found a place which apparently had an automatic car that was an ‘upgrade’ from what we picked, because that one was in the garage. And so we were to be collected to do the paperwork and collect the car.

I enjoy a good local ‘will we survive’ experience every now and again, it’s very grounding I find, and taking part in what felt like a Greek remake of Breaking Bad in order to rent a car, while not part of our original plans, was just the thing we didn’t know we needed.

We were picked up, and promptly driven at high speed back towards the airport, while informed that the car we were speeding in was to be our car, it was very good and had in-seat heating (an unusual selling feature during a very warm Greek summer day), but to be careful of – oh, the irony – speed cameras by the police.

The car rental centre, if we can describe it as such, was a house in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by sandpits, enough tarmac for the car to be parked on (along with a surprisingly modern enterprise-looking car vacuum and pressure washer), and a picnic table out the front with a lovely floral plastic tablecloth, upon which our lessor had carefully arranged a credit card machine, a pre-printed pad of rental contracts, a coffee and a pack of cigarettes.

If someone didn’t know better, they’d undoubtedly say we were actually there for far less acceptable deal-making reasons. Our visit even included exchanging pleasantries with random members of his family, and multiple handshakes. To be honest, I’m pretty sure we probably rented his Mum’s car – but how and ever.

Anyway, we agreed to pay in cash – including a discount of 20 Euro for 2 5-star Google reviews, which I’ve left online in slight fear of repercussions – and after one of the most thorough car washes I’ve ever had to stand around and watch, we were quickly on our way, in our extravagant Citroen C5 deluxe edition, looking completely ridiculous parked up alongside the familiar tourist array of miniature Smart cars and battered Peugeot 206’s.

It bears repeating; neither of us were keen to try our luck, and lives, driving on the wrong side of the road but a likely significant percentage of the motoring population of Milos appeared to be fellow lost foreigners, so it ended up being not as fearful as you might imagine with the exception of us getting lost in the incredibly narrow C5-unfriendly streets of Tripiti on our way to Klima.

It did however allow us to easily get about during our one-day rental and revisit Klima, Sarakiniko and Plathiena at a much more leisurely and self-indulgent pace; including witnessing a very beautiful sunset at Plathiena – while simultaneously consumed by terror of how to return to the hotel in the dark.

Our time in Milos came to a close far sooner than we’d have liked – and what was a Santorini-dodging suggestion turned out to be a great recommendation and a wonderful spot to spend a few days. And, thankfully, no cars, pedestrians or passengers were harmed in the making of this blog – our car rental associate patiently waiting, cigarette in hand, at the airport car park next morning before speeding off in our beloved C5 after the most cursory of checks.