Greek islands again, you say?

So after 48 hours back in London (during which time I hung out with Bec & Craig and reacquainted myself with the delights of Harrow on the Hill, a throwback to when I lived nearby a decade ago), it was back to Gatwick for another charter flight to the Greek islands – in this case Kos, on the Aegean side.

It would be fair to say that there was a bit of trepidation about Dean and my first package holiday, especially one with ‘Club 18-30′, but thankfully we’ve avoided most of the bollocks that goes with these sorts of packages.  Which isn’t to say that there been any shortage of soaking up the rays beside the apartment pool, or getting drunk, but thankfully that’s not the sum total of it.

You can see why the English get a bad name in the sunnier parts of Europe though – the entire town of Kardamena has been taken over by – and converted for – the Brits, with clubs and bars that pump out dance music all night, the most common breakfast option available being the ‘full English’ and shops selling tourist tat as far as the eye can see.  And this is at the end of September, which is far from peak season.  You know things are bad when you get a big smile for bothering to use the Greek words for hello and thankyou at the supermarket.

Still, the big upside of being in one place for a while, as we’ve found throughout this trip, is that you do get a real chance to get to know the locals a lot better – it’s been awesome getting to know George, the crazy Macedonian manager of Genesis restaurant where we’ve ended up for dinner each night, and Lucy and Olga, the waitresses at the Garden Bar where Pina Colada’s have usually been the order of the day.

Anyhoo – we arrived at the apartments at 3 in the morning or so,  which pretty much took care of the first night.  We were theoretically supposed to be given a briefing by a rep at 10am, but after dragging ourselves out of bed and waiting round for an hour, we realised that no rep was going to be forthcoming.  Which set the scene for the rest of the week really – I don’t think we’ve seen or talked to a single one.  As I mentioned, it’s the end of the season – perhaps they’ve gone home already, or just don’t give a shit anymore.  Oh well.  The first couple of days we pretty much spent beside the pool or in the bars, before hiring scooters to go exploring round the southern half of the island.  We checked out a couple of the multitude of beaches to the south of the town, with somewhat optimistic names  like ‘Paradise Beach’ or ‘Magic Beach’.  There wasn’t really much that was magical or paradise-like about them – they were nice enough I guess, but I’ve seen a lot better in the last few months.  And without the English lobster contingent slowly turning themselves from pasty white to fluorescent pink in the Greek sun.  The rest of the day’s wandering was better though – down to the very end of the island, along dirt tracks saying hi to the goats, with some spectacular sights and even an old ruin or two thrown into the mix.  The wind was a bit of an issue, trying to throw me off my scooter  into the path of oncoming buses on more than one occasion, but we made it back to town safe and sound, with time even for a detour to the remains of an old castle with great views over the countryside.  Once we’d dropped the scooters back, it was time to celebrate Dean’s impending birthday.  And actual birthday.  Nothing better than being very drunk twice on the same day.  Still, we made a bunch of new friends and had lots of fun, so that’s what it’s all  about.  Other than more quality pool time, the other thing of note that we’ve done is take the bus over to Kos Town and check out all the historical sights – of which there are a surprising number for a town of 15,000 people.  The area was the home of Hippocrates so there are a couple of areas related to him, including a plane tree that he supposedly taught under (interesting given that they usually only live 200 years…) and the amazing Asklipieion a few km out of town.  This area used to consist of a temple to Asclepius (Greek god of healing), an early hospital and a school of medicine.  It was destroyed by an  earthquake 1500 years ago, and yet it is still a pretty incredible place.  I’ve included a couple of photos here, but as usual they don’t really do the place justice.  Very impressive indeed.  The other places that we wandered to were an ancient (and huge) agora in the town centre, which dates from the 3rd century BC for several  hundred years until another earthquake destroyed large chunks of it, and the Castle of the Knights nearby, which was one of the strongest fortresses in the area in the 14th century, used to defend against the invading Ottomans.  The Greek islands haven’t been short of invaders over the centuries, and you can see that in the design of the place – those walls ain’t flimsy! So yeah, that’s about it really – we’re out of here in the early hours of tomorrow morning and heading back to London.  Only a few more days of travelling left, but I’m just choosing not to think about that right now.