Kos to Istanbul

Next up was the Greek island of Kos which is only around 2.5 miles off the coast of Turkey. I stepped off alone and headed for the beach. Dimitra doesn’t do beaches. I walked through the Old Town which was bustling with tourists. Apparently English and Dutch tourists are the main foreign invaders. 

I wouldn’t say the beach I chose was particularly picturesque, but it was the closest, and the wall to wall sun loungers were well padded. All of the restaurants were offering free loungers so long as you spent something. A single Diet Coke would be enough. I did slightly better than that. 

After a few hours I’d had enough and headed back to town to see if I could be wowed by something. It was a nice enough town, but nothing special to report. The castle looked the most promising, however it was closed this year for renovations. 

I did however find out that Hippocrates, the philosopher and physician was born in Kos in 460 BC. He lived until the age of 90 which wasn’t bad back then.

The following day we stopped in Izmir, Turkey’s third largest city. Dimitra was booked on a ship tour to Ephesus. I think I had been there before so I didn’t need to go. It was a beautiful day with a nice gentle breeze and the town was on our doorstep which makes life easier. I had looked up the famous landmarks of Izmir and headed for the one furthest away, the “elevator building”. I know. 

It was about 3 miles away and I walked along the shoreline passing plenty of fishermen. Izmir is situated in a bay and the city stretches all the way round in a horseshoe shape. 

From sea level, my satnav took me up 155 steps to get to the building. There was a cafe at the top and as you might have guessed, an elevator which took people back to ground level. I could have got the elevator in both directions, but for some reason satnav directions wanted me to have some exercise. 

I wended my way back via some more of Izmir’s architectural finery. The clock tower was modest in size, but impressive. Next up was the bazaar – I do like a bazaar, and I bought some orange items for orange night. 

I was incorrectly dressed for the Hisar Mosque, so I couldn’t go inside. The online pictures looked good though! All in all I had an extremely pleasant 5 hours in Izmir. It was clean, well laid out and not too crowded. One of my favourite days of the whole trip. I’d recommend Izmir. And it was a 31,000 steps day which was excellent. 

We left port heading for one of the highlights of the cruise. The Captain took us up the Dardanelles, a transit that took 24 hours, towards Istanbul.