Monday, October 04, 2010

The Turkey Diaries - Day 5: Saturday 18th September 2010

Today: Greece is the word!

Being based in Bodrum provides you with a very good opportunity to visit another country - Greece. The island of Kos, to be precise.

Having border-crossed on holiday before - from France to Spain, France to Monaco, France to Italy - it feels as if you're just travelling to another town. The Turkey to Greece journey (and back) is something different entirely: you have to go through all the formalities which you expect when leaving the UK to fly to continental Europe, complicated by Turkey's non-EU/visa status. Baggage x-rays, metal detectors, passport checks, visa stamps, the lot. It's not easy. Prepare to queue, in both directions :(

However, Kos Town is just under an hour from Bodrum by express ferry, and the outward journey was a cool and pleasant one, on what was already turning out to be the hottest day of an already very hot holiday.

When you think about it, there aren't too many differences between Turkey and Greece, as we immediately discovered - swap Turkish coffee for Greek coffee...


...and if you're missing the Turkish cats, then there's plenty of Greek ones....


Kos Town has a very pretty seafront, which shares another similarity with Bodrum. There is a castle and marina at one side, and the beach at the other, although is more 'touristy' than Bodrum. Also, we didn't know until we got there, just how popular Kos Town is with Dutch tourists, judging by the number of Dutch bars/restaurants which we spotted on our day in the town.

We decided to throw ourselves into all things Greek today, which meant a lunch of moussaka for faithful travelling companion and chicken souvlaki for me. Sadly no lunch photography this time, but here's a Greek beer to wash it down with.

After lunch, we decided to take a journey on the 'little train' which took us around the coastline and round the back of the town. And in the middle of nowhere, we spotted....a cow!

Five hours in Kos Town can pass pretty quickly, so it wasn't possible to see/do everything in a day - had to miss out on the castle, for example, but there was just enough time to visit the Tree of Hippocrates, where, legend states, the original father of medicine taught his students. We also got a quick peek at the archaeological site of ancient Agora. Now that's what you call ruins!!


It was soon time to head back to Bodrum at 5.00 pm. (Ferry pictured above). If you don't mind all the delays at immigration, I'd recommend the day trip to Kos - or if you're holidaying in Kos, you can take the same trip in the opposite direction, so try a day trip to Bodrum!

After our eventual return to Bodrum, it was time to recharge our batteries before going back out for yet another evening of dining at the water's edge. And where there's a restaurant, there's a cat. Tonight's feline companion stayed with us for an hour and completely melted my heart into a big squishy mess. But she (I think it was a girl) only stayed with us as long as the food was on the table. So much for loyalty! Anyway it's Saturday night, and Bar Street is buzz, buzz, buzzing. Bodrum is lively and great fun for all ages, and there's no age-discrimination as young and old and everyone in-between are made welcome in the bars. We even get asked if we want to go into one of the ultra-trendy discos - there's hope for us yet :)))

No comments: