Kos

Kos is the easiest Dodecanese island for a guest who wants both halves of a Greek summer in one place. Serious archaeology, gentle country that suits a bicycle and good beaches sit closer together here than anywhere else in the chain. It suits a family, or travellers who do not want to spend their week in a hire car.

Hippocrates was born here around 460 BC. The Asklepieion that bears his name is 4 kilometres from the modern town, on three terraces cut into a hillside facing the strait. The site shows what an ancient teaching hospital looked like: a sacred spring, treatment rooms, lodgings, a gymnasium and a temple on the top terrace. Walk it slowly. In the lower town, beside the castle of the Knights of St John, stands a plane tree. By tradition, Hippocrates taught under it. The present trunk is several hundred years old and is held up by metal scaffolding.

Kos Town is a Mediterranean port with many layers of history. Italian planners rebuilt much of it after the 1933 earthquake. They left wide streets lined with colonnades and civic buildings in the Rationalist style, a plain Italian modernism, and most of these survive intact. A Roman odeon (a small roofed theatre), an agora (the ancient marketplace) and a small Hellenistic stadium sit among the cafes, and the mix takes some getting used to.

Two practical notes. The island is mostly flat, and a maintained network of cycle paths runs along the northern coast; hire a bicycle for at least one day. The hot springs at Therma, 12 kilometres from town, run straight into a small cove. The Turkish coast and Bodrum are visible across the strait, less than 5 miles away. Three or four nights suits Kos. Avoid mid-July to mid-August, when the island is hotter than the Cyclades and the resort coast dominates.

House Notes

  1. Arrival

    KGS (Kos International Airport “Ippokratis”) takes long-range private jets through Signature Flight Support and Goldair Handling, whose station manager is Andreas Gerandreas. The airport is open 24 hours and lies 26 kilometres south-west of Kos Town. The other arrival is the crossing from Bodrum, 20 to 30 minutes by high-speed catamaran into the Old Port with eight sailings a day in summer, and it needs a passport, never an ID card.

  2. The address

    Aqua Blu at Lambi has 53 suites on the north-east tip of the island and takes adults only, from the age of 16. The Tamaris Spa works from a curated Cinq Mondes Paris ritual collection, Cuvee runs the kitchen and the Epic Hotel Group operates the house. Ask for a Pool Experience Suite on the western edge of the garden, away from the Lambi promenade.

  3. Albergo Gelsomino

    Albergo Gelsomino has eight suites inside the Italian guest house Rodolfo Petracco built on Akti Miaouli in 1928 for officials of the Fascist era, restored as a hotel after 90 years of other uses. The Juliet balconies, whitewashed facade and Turkish-style pointed arches survive intact. It is the smallest serious house in Kos Town, and the most honest in its architecture.

  4. Ktima Akrani

    Ktima Akrani is the Triantafyllopoulos winery at Zipari, in the northern foothills of Mount Dikeos. Antonis and Mary Triantafyllopoulou planted the first vines in 1996 and revived a winemaking tradition that had nearly lapsed, Mary is now president of the Union of Wine Producers and Growers of the Aegean, and Kos gained PDO status (protected designation of origin) in 2007. Follow the Malagouzia and the Athiri; tastings are by appointment.

  5. Hatziemmanouil

    The second winery, Hatziemmanouil, stands on the main road from Kos to Kefalos through Asfendiou, founded in 2004 in vineyards the family had farmed for generations. It opens Monday to Saturday, 9am to 6pm, from May to October, and by appointment in winter, with two tasting flights of eight wines or four. Guests can join the harvest by arrangement from late August into September.

  6. Casa Romana

    Casa Romana is a third-century Roman house on Grigoriou E Street, restored by the Italian administration in the 1930s and reopened in 2009, with three atria (open central halls), frescoes, marble floors and Hellenistic mosaics in place. It opens 8am to 8pm from 1 April to 31 October, last entry 7.40pm, and closes on Tuesdays all year. It is the quietest serious archaeology in Kos Town and the easiest to walk before breakfast.

  7. The Italian quarter

    The architect Florestano Di Fausto designed the Government House on Akti Miaouli from 1927 to 1929, civic architecture of the Mussolini era in a measured Mediterranean style, later used by the Italian-German command from 1943 to 1945 and the British administration from 1945 to 1947. The other set piece is the Municipal Market on Eleftherias Square, begun by Di Fausto and completed by Rodolfo Petracco in 1934 after the 1933 earthquake, and listed as a historic monument.

  8. Palaio Pyli

    Palaio Pyli is the Byzantine fortress and abandoned settlement on the northern slope of Mount Dikeos, 15 kilometres from Kos Town. Christodoulos of Patmos founded a monastery and castle here in 1080; the village grew around it within decades, was held by the Knights and was abandoned around 1830 after an epidemic. Three rings of walls survive, with seven towers and the chapels of Agios Antonios, Panagia Kastriani and Agioi Asomati, and the site is free to walk: go at first light.

  9. Agios Stefanos

    Two early Christian basilicas stand at Kamari Bay on the Kefalos peninsula, 42 kilometres from Kos Town, dated 469 and 554 AD by the destructive earthquakes that bracket their construction. The Italian archaeologist Luciano Laurenzi excavated the site in 1932: three-aisled plans, floor mosaics, granite colonnades and a cross-shaped baptistery to the east. The chapel of Agios Nikolaos stands on the Kastri islet directly across the bay, and on a calm day a strong swimmer can reach it.

  10. The Asklepieion

    The sanctuary lay lost until 1902, when the German archaeologist Rudolf Herzog and the local historian Iakovos Zarraftis uncovered it on its three terraces above the strait. It was a place of worship of Asclepius and of the healing and teaching of medicine, where Hippocrates is held to have founded his school, and the great Doric temple of Asclepius, of the early 2nd century BC, crowns the upper terrace. Walk it at opening, before the coaches, because the climb between the terraces is the whole point.

Anchorage Notes

  1. Kos Marina

    Kos Marina lies a mile southeast of the old harbour on the island’s north coast. It has five piers and 265 berths with mooring lines, water and power to 450 amps, and takes yachts up to 80 metres. It is the island’s full-service base, 25 kilometres and half an hour from the airport, and the place where a large charter is berthed.

  2. Mandraki

    Mandraki is the old harbour of Kos Town, under the walls of the Neratzia Castle, which the Knights Hospitaller built in 1315 to hold the harbour mouth. Kos Marina runs it now and has added 80 berths among the fishing boats and the excursion craft. A yacht lies here for the medieval town behind it.

  3. Mastichari

    Mastichari, on the north coast, is the port of the inland village of Antimachia, about 22 kilometres from the town. It has sandy beaches, seafood tavernas and the daily boats that cross to Kalymnos and Pserimos in under an hour. A yacht lies off the resort or takes the quay, facing the Kalymnian channel.

  4. Kardamena

    Kardamena, ancient Alasarna, is on the south coast, 30 kilometres from the town: a former fishing village, now a busy resort along 6 kilometres of sand. Its working port runs the daily boats to Nisyros, where a guest can walk down into the volcano to the crater floor. A yacht lies off the long beach, or crosses the strait from here to the volcanic island.

Mythology

  1. Heracles

    Sailing home from Troy, Heracles is blown onto Kos by a storm that Hera raises. The islanders take his ships for pirates and throw stones to keep him out. He forces his way in and kills the king, Eurypylus, but a man named Chalcedon wounds him, and Zeus snatches him away before he comes to real harm.

  2. The Asklepieion of Kos

    The Asklepieion stands on a hill outside the ancient city of Kos. Its three terraces, inscriptions and Hellenistic and Roman buildings tie the healing cult to the island, and most of them come later than the lifetime of Hippocrates.