“Hey, that’s Greece…Wanna Go?”

Since Bodrum didn’t turn out to be the type of town we were looking for we decided to check out Kos, the Greek Island visible from Bodrum and an hour ferry ride away.  We spent our last few days in Kos and Rhodes with a brief stop in Symi, and these 3 islands alone almost derailed our travel plans.  We were close to staying in Greece, heading north to Athens instead of heading South to Syria!

Kos, Symi and Rhodes make up 3 of the 12 Dodecanese islands in Greece which are just off the coast of Turkey.  Kos was a pretty nice town though it was pretty dead as it’s still low season and the ferries have just started to run (supposedly the economic crisis in Greece right now is causing it to be a lot slower than it should be).  Its claim to fame is that it’s the birthplace of Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine.  That was pretty interesting to me since I had to learn about the Hippocratic Oath in university.  Embarrassingly, what was more impressive to us was the fact that we got to taste pork for the first time in over 2 months (since Spain we’ve only been in Muslim countries)!  We had a pork gyro, and needless to say, we had the best of all pork products, bacon, on our subsequent meal.  Mmmmm…bacon.  Since I’m back in Turkey I shouldn’t get all riled up about that amazing meat that can go great beside eggs for breakfast, or layered between turkey and tomatoes in a club sandwich for lunch, or wrapped around a filet mignon for dinner, as it’ll be another month and a half before I can taste that crispy awesomeness again.

Ok enough about pork.  Kos was a very nice island on the Aegean, but Kos town wasn’t one of those picturesque villages like Santorini and Mykonos that I had always associated with Greece.  After spending a day there we took a ferry to Rhodes with a stopover in Symi.  Symi, on the other hand, was a town built for postcards.  The buildings were all different shades of pastel pink and yellow, with some white ones in between.  Tier by tier they were stacked beautifully around the harbour rising up the hills, and with a population of under 3000 I don’t think development will change this place anytime soon.  We would have liked to stay longer here, but as usual we were short on time, and the most popular of the Dodecanese Greek Islands, Rhodes, was calling.

Rhodes has an interesting history as it’s been controlled by many different groups.  The Persians, Romans, Turks, Saracens, and obviously Greeks have all ruled here at one point in time.  Rhodes was also once home to one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, the Colossus of Rhodes (what’s actually pretty cool about our trip so far is we’ve been to 4 of the 7 wonders of the ancient world. What isn’t as cool is that the only one left standing is the pyramids of Giza, so the other 3 have basically just been placards).  The group of rulers that left the biggest imprint however were the Knights of Saint John (Knights Hospitaller) in the 14^th century.  During their rule they built the old city that is still in amazing condition to this day.  Approaching Rhodes on the ferry, the first thing you notice are the walls of the old city.  Since we’ve seen so many walled cities on our trip already, I was expecting it to be not much different than the others.  I was wrong.  This place is exactly what I would imagine an old medieval fort-city should be like.  There is a huge moat surrounding the city, and though it’s now devoid of water you still can’t help but be impressed by the 30-50 foot high walls on either side of you as you walk on the footpath.  As you cross one of the drawbridges late at night and enter the city you are greeted by something truly magical.  Its buildings, pebbled streets, squares, fortifications, lighting, courtyards and alleyways all come together to create an enchanting experience.  It almost put me in the mood to buy a dragon-slaying sword to save a damsel in distress.  I do however have to stress that it feels like this at night only when the shops are closed.   In the daytime the endless multitude of shopkeepers, restaurateurs and tourists can leave you feeling a lot less like a knight and a lot more like a tool as your goal becomes finding the nearest ice cream vendor instead of the nearest evil villain.

So instead of being in the city in the daytime, we went to check out the rest of the island with something I haven’t been in control of for over 2 months, a car.  I do admit, getting behind the wheel of that tiny Opel was super fun and made me miss driving.  As the whole island is only 80 km long and 40 km wide, we were able to cover a lot of it in the one day we had a vehicle.  We went to the town of Lindos, where there is an amazing acropolis (aptly named the acropolis of Lindos) built atop a natural citadel.  The town was enjoyable and the views from the acropolis were spectacular.  We also made it to the beaches, and though they were rocky, the water was beautiful on both the Aegean (north) and Mediterranean (south) side.  Plus there were topless women sunbathing.  Just saying.

Anyways, we enjoyed it so much here that we were really tempted to take an overnight ferry from Rhodes to Athens and onto Santorini and Mykonos.  We were even thinking of going to Italy by ferry to meet up with our friends Lindsay and Ian who are on the Amalfi coast on a romantic holiday.  However, as Di can confirm, I’m pretty good at killing romance so I didn’t really want to ruin their vacation.  So here we are back in Turkey in a town called Fethiye waiting to hop on a gullet tomorrow to do 4 days of sailing on the Mediterranean.  Not too shabby and now that we’re here I’m happy to be back in Turkey.

The city outside the walls of the old town of Rhodes is really nice as well; very modern and cosmopolitan with clubs, restaurants, and shops right out of Soho.  We had a great night in a Greek outdoor tavern drinking ouzo, eating seafood and soaking in the atmosphere.  The attractions here, both natural and man-made, really make Rhodes island a beautiful place.  The addition of eating pork (that sounds ridiculous but it’s true) and the thrill of driving a nimble little 5 speed on windy coastal roads resulted in 4 brilliant days for us.  This first taste of Greece has definitely left me wanting to see more, so hopefully we’ll be back very soon.  Did I mention topless beaches?