Firopotamos bay, Milos
Fourteen rooms cut into the rock, and nothing between them and the water
Firopotamos, November 2021. Photograph: Manfred Werner, CC BY-SA 4.0
The house was a pumice store until 1961. We kept the walls, the arches and the sea, and changed almost nothing else.
Alkyon sits forty steps above the water on the north coast of Milos, where the fishermen's syrmata are cut into the rock. Fourteen rooms, one long terrace, a kitchen that cooks what the boats bring in.
We open in April and close at the end of October. In between, the hotel is run by six people, three of whom were born in the village.
Read the house's story
The house
Whitewash, volcanic stone, and shade where you need it
Every room opens onto its own piece of terrace. The walls are half a metre of local stone, so they stay cool through August without air conditioning — though there is air conditioning.
See the houseRooms and suites
Fourteen, no two alike
The pool is salt, drawn from the same water you can see from it. It is heated in April and again in October, and left alone in between.
Dining
One kitchen, one long table, whatever came off the boat
Breakfast runs until eleven. Dinner is four courses, served at eight, and the menu is written each afternoon. Guests eat at the same table unless they ask not to.
This week's menu
Spa
Two treatment rooms in the old cistern
Thermal water, sea salt from Pollonia, and oil pressed eight kilometres away. Bookable the day before; the therapists are Maria and Eleni, and there are only ever two of them.
Treatments and pricesExperiences
Things worth getting up for
Kleftiko by caique
Seven hours, lunch on board. Leaves at nine, weather permitting.
€140 per person
Sulphur mines walk
Three hours with Yannis, who worked the last shift in 1958.
€60 per person
Pottery at Tripiti
Half a day at the wheel. Your pieces are fired and posted on.
€90 per person
Night fishing
Out at dusk with Stelios. Whatever you catch is breakfast.
€70 per person
The island
Seventy-three beaches, and the ones worth the drive
Sarakiniko is twelve minutes away and best at seven in the morning. Firiplaka wants a car. Tsigrado wants a rope ladder and a sense of humour. We keep a written guide at reception and will mark up a map for you.
Offers
Worth booking direct
April and October, five nights
The shoulder weeks, when the island is empty and the pool is heated. Fifth night free, dinner on the first.
See the offer
The boat and the room
Three nights with a day on the caique to Kleftiko, lunch included, for two.
See the offer