0Kos — A mini guide

Crete may be the biggest (and the most vis­ited) Greek island but there are over 200 oth­er inhab­ited Greek islands many of which also have inter­est­ing things to see. Many can be eas­ily reached by ferry or short flight and can be vis­ited either on their own or for a short peri­od as part of a “hol­i­day on hol­i­day” or as part of a tour of mul­tiple islands. This is the first in a series of mini-guides to some oth­er the oth­er islands

Kos is one of the largest islands in the Dodecanese islands, a south­ern group near the Turk­ish coast. Kos has it’s own inter­na­tion­al air­port which means it can be reached dir­ectly by flight from the UK and across the EU. Kos has been inhab­ited for thou­sands of years so offers plenty for those who like history.

The main town on Kos is Kos Town which is com­fort­ably the biggest. There are 4 oth­er tour­ist ‘towns’ around the coast: Kar­da­m­aina; Kefalos; Marmari; and Tigaki. Much of the north­ern coast­line has gentle sandy beaches but the wind comes from the north so these can be windy and a bit wavy. Much of the south coast is ina­cess­ible but the access­ible parts offer some inter­est­ing and sheltered beaches. Inland there are also a hand­ful of large villages/small towns: anti­m­achia; pyli; zia; and zipari. Most tour­ists stay around Kos town, Kefalos, or Kar­da­m­aina and all of these have plenty of places to eat and drink.

Kos is home to a num­ber of winer­ies and craft ales are avail­able so drink­ers have lots of good options. We found many places charged around E4 for a small beer and as much as E11 for a cock­tail but we also found places selling a large beer for E2.50. Food prices ranged from around E3.50 for a basic gyros wrap to around E30 for a decent res­taur­ant main course which is fairly typ­ic­al for Greece in 2023. In Crete and in main­land Greece we’ve usu­ally man­aged to find more hid­den cheap­er ven­ues serving mostly loc­als but with Kos being rel­at­ively small it seems that most places have been ‘dis­covered’. Over­all we had good and very good food at a decent price. We found the people friendly and typ­ic­ally Greek and we found the roads rel­at­ively quiet and straight-for­ward to nav­ig­ate. Below are very brief ‘reviews’ of the sites we visited.

Thermal springs

These are easy to get to if you have powered trans­port or a bike. Google nav­ig­a­tion knows the cor­rect route which is help­ful. They were sur­pris­ingly hot — like a very hot bath — hot­ter than oth­er thermal baths I’ve vis­ited. We went 3 times and each time it was fairly busy but not silly. The beach is decent for swim­ming too.

Lake Avdellolimni on Sympetro ridge

The lake (more of a pond) was empty so there was no wild­life, although we expec­ted it to be dry by Octo­ber. The road up is only suit­able for off-road vehicles not recom­men­ded in typ­ic­al car. The road back down is paved but has a mil­it­ary no entry sign pfa­cing down­hill part way down so I would­n’t recom­mend driv­ing up it and driv­ing through the sign! There was no such sign on the road up so it isn’t clear where you can and can­’t go. There are moun­tain bik­ing trails, jumps etc so clearly some of it can be used / accessed. My advice would be enjoy the views, don’t take any pic­tures of any­thing that could be mil­it­ary and you should be ok.

Asclepion

This was impress­ive, well worth see­ing. Don’t stand on the high walls as you get whistled at by staff. Google takes you to the staff / vehicle entrance which is a few hun­dred metres from the nor­mal entrance so when you get near to it trust the signs. There isn’t much shade so it could be pretty intense in sum­mer but it was fine in Octo­ber. E8 entry, or get the E15 3‑in‑1 card which is good value as it also gets you into the Roman house and the Archae­olo­gic­al museum.

Castle of kefalos

Small and not a lot to see but the views are good. Worth vis­it­ing if you’re passing or in Kefalos already but don’t make a ded­ic­ated trip.

Ancient theatre

Very little of it to see but the views are good, as they are from the view­ing point just a short dis­tance fur­ther along the road so it’s worth a vis­it if you’ve got transport.

Basilica of St. Stefanos

This is worth see­ing. It was easy to find and park and is free to explore. There was some nice floor mosa­ic rem­nants. The beach is sandy and the swim to Kastri islet is easy too. This is one of (pos­sibly the best) beach on Kos for snor­kelling as it is easy to get in and out and only a short swim to rocks and Kastri.

Antimachia castle

This was great — whilst there isn’t a lot of detail left it has a really impress­ive scale and great views. There are 2 churches, one of which (the smal­ler) is open and has some faded fres­cos on the wall.

Odeon

This is quite small com­pared to some but it’s worth see­ing if you’re in Kos town.

Roman house

The Roman house is a nice place to explore expe­cially if you already have the 3‑in‑1 E15 tick­et. Part of the site is left as ruins but the house itself was rebuilt and restored and now houses some art­work as well as the history.

Dikaios Mountain

The views are spec­tac­u­lar but this is not a cas­u­al walk. I am not a reg­u­lar walk­er but I man­aged it although I did need to pause for a rest a couple of times. Young chil­dren and retir­ee aged people should prob­ably only attempt this if they are already reg­u­lar hikers. My trav­el­ling com­pan­ion is much more of an out­doors type and he actu­ally man­aged it in flip­flops although for most people this would­n’t be a good idea. For most people you need to park in the vil­lage of Zia and then walk about 2.4km along a dirt-road. The steep path to the top is then a fur­ther 1.8km to the very top and is well marked with arrows and dots painted on rocks. For those with an off-road suit­able vehicle the 2.4km dirt road can be driv­en with care. I did drive this road in our reg­u­lar car hire but it was chal­len­ging and I would not recom­mend it unless you have done a lot of moun­tain dirt road driv­ing in Greece. There is a little church at the top which I believe is vis­ited by loc­als on Sundays.

Agora

This was big­ger than it first appeared and was inter­est­ing to explore. If you’re in Kos town it’s very easy to access as it’s in the middle and is sur­roun­ded by places to see, eat and drink. Note that last entry is 3pm in October.

Nerantzia Castle

This has quite impress­ive scale and is worth an explor­a­tion. Like the Agora last entry was 3pm in Octo­ber. There are some decent views of Kos town from some of the high­er parts although there is lim­ited shade.

Archaeological Museum

This was a lovely little museum. It was nice that it was­n’t too big. I thought it was well worth the E6 price (which for us was effect­ively E1 as we had the E15 com­bined tick­et). I thought it was nice to have info about the geo­graphy and myth­o­logy as well as the archae­ology. And the air con­di­tion­ing made it a lovely res­pite from the heat outside.

Agios theologos beach

This beach is on the far west coast and can be reached on prop­erly paved road so is access­ible to any­one with a vehicle. It appears to often be quite windy so it would be good for surf­ing and as it faces west it will also likely be good for sun­sets. We enjoyed the views but did­n’t swim due to the con­di­tion of the sea.

Camel beach

This was a lovely quiet beach not too far from Kefalos. The road down looks excit­ing but was actu­ally no prob­lem — there were plenty of oth­er hire cars at the bot­tom, but you can park at the top and walk down if you prefer. The rocks out in the sea made for great snor­kelling sim­il­ar to oth­er beaches on the south coast.