At the beginning of September Melek was showing me around the Aegean Coast of Turkey and asked me if I wanted to visit a couple Greek islands. Well of course I do, but I did not know just how close the islands are to Turkey.
The first island we visited was Kos, which is an hour long ferry ride from Bodrum (Melek wrote about this city yesterday). Turns out Kos was the home of Hippocrates, the father of medicine (you have heard of him with the Hippocratic Oath doctors take to do no harm), 2400 years ago. There is a 500 year old tree that is reputed to be from the original tree Hippocrates taught medicine from. How cool is that? If you want to see more you can visit the Asclepieion, which was a therapeutic center built around a temple of Asclepius and one of the very first hospitals and medical schools founded by Hippocrates.
Other things we did was take a little train (motorized with wheels) around the city. It took 30 minutes or so and, while there was no one telling you what all you were seeing, it did give you an overview of the small town. One thing we saw and checked out ourselves was the ancient Roman ruins in the middle of town.
From there we found a really nice settling to eat lunch, by choosing a restaurant under grape leave vines right next to the ruins. It was quiet and had a wonderful atmosphere. I ordered a Greek sample plate and a “bubble milk” (strawberry ice cream with tapioca balls of fruit juice), to which Melek and the waiter started giggling. Well the joke was on them because it was excellent and Melek even decided she wanted to share when I had her suck up a ball and then told her to pop it in her mouth. The look on her face was a combination of surprise and delight as the ball squirted delicious juice inside her mouth.
We spent the rest of the afternoon at the beach (about an hour to hour and a half) relaxing in the lounge chairs and going into the water up to our knees (the water was some what chilly, but no bad once you get in). There are plenty of bars with beach access and chairs, so don’t pay for the chairs and just get what you want to drink or eat.
We had to be back to the ferry at 5pm, which kind of sums up my impression of Kos. It is like many of the cruise ship towns I have seen sailing the Caribbean. Most people come in for the day and the further away from the dock you get, the less touristy everything is. With this said, I am glad we went over, but I figure a day is all you really need unless you want to explore the island in depth.
