You might not believe the small islet at first glance. But yes, KOS surprises with many great things worth seeing. So you should not just stay in your apartment or in the hotel complex, because it is worth going on a tour of discovery with the rental car. The buggies are really hot and trendy right now, a nice big toy for real men.
Since we put more emphasis on the discovery factor than the fun factor and covered > 150 km on our tour, we stayed with the good old car. It is probably cheaper to rent from Germany, but we preferred to use the offer from the >holiday autos< counter in the hotel (contact: holiday autos Car Rental, Kos, Tel .: +030 224 202 2997). The lady on site speaks good English, the cars are at the hotel door, so everything is easy. Our small seat ,Mia’, including fully comprehensive insurance, cost 50 EUR for the day. For convenience, we found it totally OK.
Fortified with an excellent porridge (and actually I’m not a porridge fan), we went on a discovery tour in the morning. The first point of contact was the Embros Therme (1), which is about 7 km away from the hotel. A footpath (approx. 10 minutes) leads downhill from a large, dusty parking lot with a snack to the sea, where the completely natural thermal bath is located. The up to 40 ° hot thermal water mixes with the sea water in a 10 m large “pool” with stones. Although it looks very unspectacular, you should take the water park with you and the thermal spring is also said to have a healing effect. To the right of the natural pool there is a massage table in a wooden crate. I didn’t want to take advantage of the offer, but I still found the goat funny, which probably lives there as a “pet”. The strong wind accompanied us back up to the parking lot. (Tip: take your bathing suit and towel with you. You can make the footpath with flip-flops; light sneakers are better.)
Photo left: the way to the thermal bath
Photo above: The goat belongs to that place.
Our tour continued to Kos town (2), the capital of Kos. We parked free of charge at the harbor, from where it is only a few minutes’ walk to the old town. The plantane is worth seeing, which biologists estimate to be 2000 years old. The ancient tree is hidden behind the courthouse. From the small square you also have a nice view on the 2000 year old Gymnasiums, resp. what’s left of it. A few steps further the old town with beautiful alleys, small shops, cafes and restaurants follows. To the regret of the locals, there is not much going on, the tourists are missing. In the market hall, which is significantly smaller than expected, we bought olive oil and Greek spices. Incidentally, there is no fish and meat here.
Along the coast it is noticeable that most of the hotels are still closed or orphaned. Little going on in the seaside resort of Tigaki, which is on the edge of the former saltworks (3). Salt has not been extracted there for a long time. On the edge of the saltworks, a few houses are decaying that graffiti (artists) have tampered with. Unfortunately we could not marvel at the beautiful flamingos, they only stay there in winter.
From Tigaki we went back to the “main road”, which leads across Kos. The landscape is rocky, also mountainous, the vegetation in summer is poor, the wind is strong. On the right and left of the road you can see cows on chains and goats, too sometimes crossing the road and again and again the view of the dark blue sea glitters with the sun, as if dabbed in small Greek islands. In the east of Kos you can see the coast of Turkey.
Coming from the middle of the ireland you get the view on Kefalos (4). And because the view is so beautiful, there is a parking lot to look at. Here the mini island Kastri in front of the hotel block (ugh, building sin) fails with the little church. You can swim over and sunbathe in front of the church It’s really special. However, we didn’t feel invited by the village to stay at a café, so we moved on to Agios Joannis Prodro, 7 km away mos (5).
The winding path on a partially asphalted (but still passable with a normal car) route is worthwhile. From the parking lot there are a few steps down to the monastery and the tavern of Katarina. The landlady takes the Corona break calmly, laughs a lot and serves us a homemade Tsatsiki, of course. We enjoy the fantastic view of the sea and the mountains. A place of peace and quiet, as alone as we are there. In the small chapel we marvel at the artistic interior, the beautiful paintings and cannot say goodbye to the atmospheric place without lighting a candle. For many years she has been restoring the former cell wing with a lot of manual work and it will take a few more years before it is finished.
We take the way back along the other side of the coast, where there are also natural sandy beaches. We stopped in the port town of Kardamena (6)
before we wanted to experience 
the sunset from Zia (7), which is 300 to 350 m high. And it’s not only worth a trip because of the sensationally beautiful red, but also because of the fantastic view of large parts of the island of Kos and the neighboring islands of Kalymnos and Pserimos. The last meters high in the highest place of Kos goes from the parking lot on foot. Passing all sorts of souvenir shops and a sweet “positive” shop, we head up to the village church, which was unfortunately closed. The alley is lined with a few taverns from which you can admire the sunset. We took the mother of all the terrace restaurants, the Sunset Balcony. There we not only had the space in the first row for the natural spectacle, but were spoiled personally by the boss. We followed the daily recommendation Moussaka and Pork in the oven. Both deliciously cooked by his mom and so we enjoyed with all our senses. What is certain is that we will come back to Sunset Balcony if we visit Zia again.
We left Zia after the many new impressions on the other side on a small winding road that leads to the “fastest” way back to Kos. Because of the often missing signage and the meantime darkness we probably havent’t caught the shortest way back to the hotel, but if you orientate yourself towards the sea, you can’t go wrong.
It was a very impressive, great day of touring through the island of KOS. I hope I could invite a little to “imitate”!
