Hint of Color

I made a small outing to the forest on Saturday with my friends to see the fall colors. The colors weren’t all that saturated yet, but nevertheless it was so pretty, that it was a shame I didn’t have my camera with me. So today when I went for our normal daily walk with U, I had to take my camera along too, just in case.

The views weren’t as pretty as the ones in the recreation area, but anyway, there are some colors… Though, autumn isn’t as far as it could be —  there are still some signs of summer left too.

Asklepion

Asclepeion, asklepion… Ask-whatever is a hard name for me to learn (maybe because the spelling seems to vary?), but one of the best historic sights at Kos. The name comes from a god Asclepius, who according to Greek mythology was the god of medicine and healing.

So Asklepion was a temple for gods, but apparently also sort of an ancient hospital. It was an institution where healers tried to cure patients and to systematize medicine. It is said that Hippocrates got his medical training at this very asclepieion on Kos.

Bodrum

I don’t know if trips to Turkey can now really be recommended because of some riots that have happened recently, but at least still a month a ago a day trip from Kos to Bodrum in Turkey was pretty nice and easy to carry out. I wanted to go to Turkey to for the bazaars (and to see if my memories of the country are still true, I’ve been there when I was maybe eight?).

There really is a lot to buy for a cheap price, but unfortunately almost everything was fake and the quality didn’t seem to be the best. For example, I would have wanted a new purse, but didn’t feel like buying a one with a poorly made “Mikael Kors” sign… Apart from that, Bodrum seemed really charming.

Therma

During our vacation in Kos, we stayed pretty much around the Kos Town area besides a day trip to Turkey and visit to Therma Beach, that has a natural hot spring. Hot spring is something I didn’t expect to find in Greece, so of course I had to check it out.

The distance from Kos Town to Therma was about 10 kilometres, so we rented bikes for the trip. In the end of the trip we faced a tough combination of a loooong upward slope and blazing hot weather, but otherwise getting there was pretty easy. At Therma you still have to climb down a small sandy road to get to the beach though, but it didn’t feel bad at all after the struggles with cycling… And if you’re feeling lazy, you can also pay for a donkey ride up and down the hill. Some visitors even drove the road down with a car.

The small spring full of hot bubbly water was definitely worth the visit! (Even though it was really crowded…) When we arrived I was sweating from the hot air and fierce sunshine, but after a while in the water the plus 30 degrees celcius air started to feel cold! What a weird feeling. That and the natural setting of the spring made the experience pretty different from example my hot spring visit in Iceland…

I could also recommend visiting the spring just for the great views on the way there (and if you like goats, because there were lots of them on the hills ;))!

The Other Side

Before I start sharing my holiday memories from Kos in my blog, I have to note that Greece and especially Kos isn’t all fun and games for everybody… I was privileged to be there on a holiday and not on a leg of a long and hard journey, that is probably also a matter of life and death to many.

I really don’t have words for the “refugee issue” right now, so I’m telling about it the only way I know how: through pictures.