White Stones Beach ( nearly )
Tuesday 3rd January 2023
Today a late start and a walk with the dog after a drive out to Platis Gialos. I have been to Platis before, in the low season. It’s a long straight beach with the usual collection of rooms, apartments, a shop and a few tavernas. I expected most if not all to be closed. But this is to be a starting point, for what I hope will be a nice walk for both of us, to a pebble beach, called White Stones beach. I had checked the map and it looked safe for us, no high mountains to climb ! It’s my last full day on Sifnos, it’s been a really lovely break.
So this is the dog on Kamares beach. I had just picked him and the car up and had driven down to see if the bakers was open, it was now, but the usual lady was not there. Good job I know the Greek word for my favourite pie then. So I shared it with the dog, at one point, he got a bit frisky and jumped up on me, to remind me it was his turn for a bit now now. We then headed to Platis, but my furry friend, was so keen to get there, he really wanted to tell me that, which he did in spades. In Apollonia there was a cat just slowly crossing the road, no one hit it, amazingly. After Apollonia the road stretches out, the countryside becomes more rural, and I had forgotten how beautiful this part of the island is. The island is a bit like a tear drop and this is the bit at the bottom of the drop. We reached Platis and drove along its straight road and then just after the road turned away from the beach, we went up a track, by a church then where that ended we parked. The dog was really ready to go now, there were loose goats and chickens about. Very soon we were climbing, with lovely views of Platis.
This mountain is covered in trees. They were not huge, but they looked healthy enough. They were giving a bit of shade. The path was quite easy to start with, well marked. But very soon, we were walking on bare stone, but it was shaped like a staircase, but pointing the wrong way, so it was really difficult to walk on, unless you had four feet. But the views were amazing. It was quite hot. I offered water to the dog, but he just wanted to get going again.
From here, we faced two problems, or I did. A dog that had smelt goats and was now trying to trail them, and a surface that was now loose stones, which were very slippery. The second problem eased after a while, with a return to the peculiar saw tooth surface, but with the amount of pulling, I felt it was only a matter of time, before I keeled over, and I might loose my grip of the lead, and the dog would be gone. Not good.
But we did get a glimpse of the beach I wanted to get too, the path was downhill from here, another reason to turn around. I will try it once more on my own perhaps. We walked back to the car and drove and parked by Platis beach. We walked along its length, there wasn’t anything open, but various building works was going on. The dog, who likes to swim, was on his lead, so he contented himself with a paddle up to his knees. At the far end is a harbour, we went to that, this is a church up two flights of steps, for some reason my friend wanted to go up and see, he has been here before I was told. After going up, and having a look, we walked back and returned to the car.
We returned back to Apollonia, I went into the shop where my friends buy kitchen things, but they were in the process of moving into new premises, so could not locate what I wanted, but said they would text my friends when the item appeared. I also put some petrol in the car, thankfully undertaken by an attendant and not me and a machine. Finally we drove back to Kamares, met my friends at the cafe by the port and exchanged stories. The Dionisios Solomos was coming in, there were quite a few people and cars about.
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