There’s just one drawback to staying in a romantic old windmill on a remote Greek island. You guessed it - the wind. We tend to forget that those picture-postcard white towers were put where they’d catch the best of the breeze.
And though the Doctor’s Windmill, on Kimolos, is now sans sails and has been turned into holiday apartments, climate change wasn’t part of the conversion. When the wind blows here, you know about it.
But the windmill’s pluses are many: you have an almost-all-the-island view from your terrace; you can never get lost because you can see it from miles away; and you do feel quite privileged to stay there.
Particularly because the Doctor’s Windmill was home for more than 50 years to Dr Stelios Logothetis. He treated patients not only here on Kimolos but on the neighbouring islands of Milos, Folegandros and Sifnos.
When he died at the age of 99, his grand-daughter Anna was six - now she is the young woman in charge of the windmill and its five apartments.
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The wind pinned us down for a few days in this southwest corner of the island, leaving us running after errant hats and struggling to walk around without cups of tea levitating from trays. But the large, sandy beaches of Aliki, Bonatsa and Kalamitsi remained sheltered as well as shaded, providing relief from this early mini-meltemi in mid-July.
And when the wind dropped, we were able to discover the idylls of the island: from the cool and labyrinthine alleys of the chora (main hilltop village) to the dramatic sun-cooked mountainsides, over which we hiked to the secluded beaches of Monastiriya and Soufi in the north.
Although it was high summer, there were few tourists here. Even Greeks, said Anna, can look puzzled when you mention Kimolos (and UK visitors are almost unknown). Only when you mention its bigger sister island of Milos do people get an idea of where it is.
Nights on Kimolos were still and beautiful beneath a star-filled, unpolluted sky. We would sit either in a quiet taverna on the beach, a couple of feet from the water and the moored fishing boats, or at the restaurant in the chora’s central square, where local children played the old-fashioned way - swings, roundabouts and football - a chaotic melee of joy.
At the other end of the chain of the western Cyclades is the island of Kythnos. Ferry-wise, it is four or five hours north of Kimolos and just three hours from Athens - yet a world away from the capital’s intense buzz and oven-like heat.
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It’s ringed with at least 20 beaches, almost all of them excellent and some of them sublime. In less than an hour’s hike from the little port of Merihas - with its bars, tavernas and tat-filled tourist shops - we swam and sunbathed all day on a perfect beach that we had totally to ourselves. And the water here was so clear that it seemed unreal, even in this island of wonderful swimming places.
On Kythnos, we stayed just outside Merihas, at Villa Elena - quite different from the Doctor’s Windmill but equally romantic. At the top of the steep cliff above the small bay of Martinakiya, it was reached by a precipitous stairway - at night illuminated by little lights that gave it the look of an enchanted citadel.
Days spent on the beach at Martinakiya provided a cavalcade of entertainment. In the early light, the local old folk appeared for their constitutional swim.
As the morning wore on, the oldies strolled on the sand, paddled or bobbed about in the water, behatted and chatting to each other. Then families with kids started to arrive and set up picnics. In the afternoon, young women with babies came and sat under the trees, and in the late afternoon teenage boys and girls gathered, increasingly noisily, showing off, splashing about in the water and playing the fool.
By the evening, all would be quiet again, with a few stragglers of all ages sitting quietly beneath the trees and the slowly cooling sun. We let the whole procession pass us by - and the day seemed to have gone in an instant.
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While Merihas is the sort of place where you can buy a terracotta frog with a disturbingly large penis, a few miles inland, the chora of Kythnos is so beautiful that you couldn’t make it up: a cool poem of whitewashed alleys punctuated by brilliant bouganvillea. It is also a place of pricily stylish boutiques, trendy bars and seductive restaurants - a confection that’s difficult to resist
These lesser known, less visited islands of the Cyclades such as Kimolos and Kythnos are as unspoilt as you’re going to get in Greece (short of visiting uninhabited islands that are home only to rocks and temporarily visiting goats put out to graze).
The fact that they are too small for airports only adds to their appeal, and the inevitable journey to them by ferry only enhances their delights.
NEED TO KNOW
Staying there:
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Doctor’s Windmill, Kimolos - from 75 euros per room per night (including breakfast)
Villa Elena, Kythnos - from 70 euros per night per apartment
Eating out:
Kimolos - Tou Samplou, Plateia Karmou (0287 051666) - from about 10 euros pp
Kythnos - Ostria, Merihas (22810 32263) - from about 10 euros pp
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For ferry information and booking: Ventouris Lines, www.ventourissealines.gr - ferry prices and times usually announced late spring.
If you’re staying overnight before getting a ferry to the islands, stay at the Dream Hotel, Piraeus - rates from 65 euros per night (including breakfast)
For walks on Kimolos and Kythnos and other Cycladic islands, visit www.cycladen.be