After breakfast we mustered in reception and awaited a taxi to take us to Kos Town Centre. Situated about 15 to 20 minutes away from the hotel it’s a sprawling urban Centre with a lively port. From here you can get a 20-minute crossing to Bodrum in Turkey. Previously we’d wondered what the land masses were that you can see from the beach behind our hotel. It turns out that we were seeing different parts of the Turkish coastline.
Kos town is a reasonably small town centre with a lot of historical/archaeological areas of interest. It also has numerous churches and mosques which didn’t really surprise me given its location. I’m sure the Orthodox churches originated from the Greek side of the island’s heritage and the mosques probably originated from the Turkish side of the island’s heritage. Midway through our explorations, we decided to pause in the café to partake of light refreshments. You guessed it, Char had a cappuccino, Liz had a Coke Zero, and I had a peach tea. Having scoured the hotel shop and discovered that they had some pretty naff magnets and other mementoes, we decided that we would look for these in Kos town centre. Having found all these things we needed, we decided to go back to the bus stop and wait for our ride back to the hotel as there weren’t that many places to get food. We suspected that much of the town didn’t open till later in the day and a portion of it would remain closed on Sundays. The bus back to the hotel was fun. It was due to depart at the top of the hour and by the time the clock had run down to departure time there was a huge crowd waiting for the bus. It was easy to figure out that there were way more people waiting for the bus than the number of available seats. I told Liz and Char to stick together and find themselves a seat on the bus, and I stood so that there would be more opportunity for older women and children to get a seat. (There were quite a lot of small kids on the bus and several quite elderly women with sticks.)
Below are images of Kos war memorial and one of the areas of historical interest.
On our way back, I could see a black van reversing out onto the road in front of us. The driver had no qualms at all about reversing out in front of a bus that was approaching at speed. Fortunately, the van moved out of our way in the nick of time as the bus careered past. Clearly Italian drivers aren’t the only ones who take their life in their hands!
After lunch we headed down to the beach bar to sit on the fantastic deep cushioned sofas adjacent to the beach, and to soak up a few rays of sunshine. The ladies took their books and I took my travel piano.
An hour or so later Liz was simmering nicely on gas mark seven, and decided that we needed to move into the shade. We headed back to the pool bar, as it’s the only place with outdoor shade, unless you retreat into the main hotel. I left the ladies sitting underneath the awning and went to find a lounger on the beach to top up my vitamin D.
It took about an hour until I was fully charged and I rejoined the ladies at the pool bar. I still can’t believe that we have a chef standing in the pool bar just waiting to make crêpes or serve carte dor ice cream on demand. We passed the remainder of the afternoon happily chatting away and enjoying the witty repartee, helped along by a few more cocktails, Mimosa, Kir Royale and lager shandy.
By now the final rays of Sun had become quite long and were threatening to start disappearing over the horizon. The staff were busy tending the pool area, removing glasses, picking up rubbish, and re-organising the loungers into the picture-perfect layout you’ve seen in all the photos. We were shocked to discover that it was almost 7 o’clock and although we didn’t feel terribly hungry, we shuffled up to the main restaurant to discover what tasty treats the chef had prepared for us.
After a couple of laps around the hotel grounds, the ladies retreated to our room for evening coffee in their pyjamas and one last read of their books.
Overall, it’s been a really enjoyable day and we’re really sad that tomorrow’s our last full day here, we can’t believe how quickly the time has flown past. It doesn’t seem like two seconds since we arrived.
We met Lenny the Lizard down at the beach bar. He was around 6-8 inches long and a fantastic climber. We think he’d made a nest in the palm tree way out of reach.
