Kos Cocoa Pops and Athens (get me out of here)
Trip Start
Jun 06, 2010
1
7
17
Trip End
Ongoing
Where I stayed
Kos Town, Dodecanese, Greece
Sunday, August 29, 2010
To get around, we hired push bikes. Our days were spent lounging by the pool whilst listening to the whinging poms, riding into Kos town, shopping and not much else. I found a beach that was about 10kms away which had white sand, it was called golden beach. But I only went there once as it was too far to ride to in the heat and on my tank of a hire bike. Katie found a nice rich Spanish people's resort across the road from our apartments, we went there and tried not to get found out for using their pool and eating their free buffet lunches. We were on edge there a bit!
The highlight of our experience at aristo apartments however, was the cocoa pops for breakfast every morning. Everynight we went to bed early just so the cocoa pops could arrive sooner. Yum! Another highlight of Kos was our trip to Turkey for the day. We caught a ferry over to Bodrum and spent the day shopping, eating and lazing about at the beach. We found the men of Turkey to be very nice, I remember one fellow exclaim as I was bargaining with him for a watch, "give me 10 euros now or I'll slap a your face", needless to say I promptly handed over the 10 euros.
We left Kos after 7 days of relaxation on a ferry headed for Athens. It was an overnight journey and as we boarded the boat we realised that our tickets didn't include a seat on the ferry, we had to make do with some floor space. But seeing as there were plenty of spare seats about we sat in a couple and had a few hours of comfort before we were kicked back on to the floor.
Our first impression of Athens, after a week on a Greek island, was like a slap in the face. Dirty, crowded, heaps of drug addicts and hot as bloody hot can be. After passing out in the hostel for a few hours to catch up on some sleep, I headed to the National Archaeology Museum whilst Katie went exploring, unintentionally, in the part of the city with the worst reputation for every type of criminal activity. Whilst I was admiring the millenniums old artefacts and statuary, Katie was admiring the many poses passed out groups of drug addict can arrange themselves in to. Needless to say, we stuck together after that, stopped carrying our wallets around with us and kept an eye out for devious looking individuals as we made our way around the city.
Day two in Athens saw us get the hell away from the stinking place, we needed to get to somewhere that didn't so assault the senses! Our destination was Sounio, a couple of hours bus ride out of Athens, the home of Poseidon's temple on the cliff tops, overlooking the Mediterranean. We checked out the temple before spending the day on the beach.
The next day we woke up early to go and check out the Acropolis and then we headed to the Athens Flea Market. Finally a nice side of Athens was presented to us! We spent most of the day searching for bargains and then after a snooze and some sewing we headed to dinner. Only a few more hours in Athens and we could leave again. We both agreed that Athens is good for a day, but 3 is pushing the friendship, Milan and the lakes of Italy, here we come!
