2018 June/July Kos, Greece: Pt 1: Kos-town, some of Kéfalos, Kardemena, Pyli

Having been to Greece last summer (still owing myself a turn-my-notes-into-blog from that...) for 9 days, I had a sense that it would not be so hard to pick one island and do a long weekend trip.

Flights were reasonable out of Frankfurt and Kos was the compromise reached.
For orientation, it is close enough to Turkey to see it clearly (Bodrum is a short boat ride away), and re-became a part of Greece in 1948 with the other islands in the Dodecanese chain.

Seriously, that is Turkey there over the water:



I was a bit wary of Kos due to my only having heard of it as a rather touristy place, and was happy to read that there is a wild, removed, taxi-less part of Kos far away from Kos-town, called Kéfalos.

Plan was then to spend the first/travel day in Kos-town (as all transport goes to/from Kos-town, which is kind of inconvenient) and from there to Kéfalos.

 

Day 1: Kos-town

My flight was at 5am. A friend let me nap at their place in Frankfurt for ease of making this happen (yay), but then when I got to the airport (after waking up at 2am), I learned the flight was 2 hours delayed. We picked up an extra hour of delay on the tarmac. A tire was low on air, replaced, and the matching tire had to also be replaced -- but they only had the one spare and had to order another from Hanover, which got stuck in the morning rush hour traffic.

Auspicious start.

Pro-tip: Hoppa.com has (not just on Kos) local partners (here, Python tours) who organize transfers to/from airport. Cheapest, easiest and fastest way from the airport to your hotel. I paid around 5 Euros (1 more than the bus, that comes every 1-2 hours, and a taxi would have been 30-40 Euros) to get dropped at my hotel. 

Had along walk between where we were (Psalidi) and Kos-town, including a late lunch/early dinner of Greek salad and too many appetizers.

At one of the beaches:

On the walk, saw the Roman Odeon (small amphitheater):

View looking away from Odeon: 

Day 2: Kéfalos and some other areas of Kos

Took the first bus to Kéfalos, rented a car (Manolis, they had 3 locations in Kéfalos) to make some later-in-the-day planning easier, and used the car to get a feel for Kéfalos and also visit Kardamena (nice beaches and cute shops) and Pili/Alt Pili (amazing fish restaurant with great view).

Pro-tip: Booking a car (or a bicycle or a scooter or...) online doesn't work so well. Just call the places and ask them if they have a car. Many places have an online presence with phone number, just no further functionality. Car rental didn't require a credit card, or refueling, and with super fancy insurance was 48 Euros for day. 

Views from driving up to and around Kéfalos village, of the bay:

Panorama mode:

View towards narrow part of Kéfalos, where it meets the "rest" of Kos:

Took car to where the road started getting less road-like, parked and walked around.

Also walked along a relatively tame path which supported the claim that Kéfalos was good for mountain biking.

Day 2 part 2: driving around the island. 

Heading from Kéfalos/Kardamena towards Pyli. That island you can see is Kalymnos, known for sea sponges and beloved by rock climbers.

Kardamena

Kardamena is supposed to have the best beaches and be the best mix of good eats, good beach, stuff to do. It is more than just a resort town. Bonus: it is 15 minutes from the airport. Those who aren't put off by sulfur can take a boat from there to the nearby volcanic island.

I took a few pictures of the quaint streets:


sole Asian-Indian restaurant and lush patio furniture.


The mountain in view is on Kos, the highest part of the island:

Old-Pyli: Awesome fish restaurant

I can say that it was worth the trip up to a fish restaurant at the top of a hill, Taverna - Fish House "Old Pyli". The owner is a fisherman, and when you arrive, he tells you to come to the kitchen and pick out what fish you want. We ended up with a fish platter for 2 since we had no strong opinions, which was 3 different fish (cooked whole), plus a few octopus and a few giant shrimp, preceded by a greek salad and followed by some melon. Someone else's picture of such a platter.

Some turbulence during the day...

For this trip I was not so good about reading all the reviews for lodgings. I was getting a bit nervous about the Kéfalos lodgings as the day went on because I had had trouble reaching our contact. Originally had said that we would arrive in the evening, and  she had later written a 1 line response. Were trying to change to check in earlier, when first arriving in Kéfalos, but could not reach her by phone. I read some of the negative reviews later, and one mentioned a cockroach. Others said it was dirty, beds were bad. Mosquitos.

Aside: Mosquitos are a problem on Kéfalos. I might invest in a travel mosquito net, am still healing from a few of the welts I got. 

I was getting increasingly worried, reading these negative things and not knowing if we would find that we could actually check in at the time we suggested.

Before Old-Pyli, managed to check in, cautiously, and everything seemed very clean upon very thorough inspection, although the plumbing is quite old and weird --- no U-Bend/Trap under the sinks or down the drains. Placed something heavy on the mid-floor drain and headed out. 

Came back to this. Those tiles are sort of "standard" tile size, so I would estimate him at the size of my thumb.

Managed to trap him under a glass.

Looked for backup hotel options, calling around at 23:30 on a Saturday. Thankfully the first place  called who originally said they had nothing called us back and said ok actually they do, and offered to come fetch us even. On the ride to her lodgings, we discussed the cockroach and she said she has her apartments treated every 40 days, and that where we had originally book were some of the oldest/first tourist apartments in the area. Also learned she is originally from NYC.
Beds were good, AC worked, place was clean, windows have screens against mosquitos. Balcony, and well-located about 5 minutes walk from the one bicycle rental place.

Part 2 will be all of the pictures from 2 days of mountain biking and swimming in Kéfalos.

2018 Feb 22-25: Outside-Venice: Lake Garda, Mt Baldo, Verona (at night)

This is part 2. Saturday, 24 of Feb. The first part, just Venice, is here.

Venice, a sinking, surprisingly chilly, wet mess.  Time to get out of town and explore some real nature. Of the outings possible,  the one to Lake Garda seemed best (despite the 3 hr combo train and bus ride), in part due to finding a hiking route from a town  (Malcesine) where one could ride up to the mountain top (Mt. Baldo, ht 1760m), so great view and sunshine even if hiking proved impossible.

Would be nice to go back in the summer, fly into Venice and immediately get out of town and do something like cycle the prosecco route to Valdobbiadene.

The bus travel was actually very simple because the "transfer" in Garda was actually just the bus waiting a few minutes and then changing its name.

Route was:

• Train from Venice to Verona
• Bus from Verona to Garda (Line 165/Line 164)
• (which became) Bus from Garda to Malcesine (Line 483/484)

[Mt Baldo: stunning views, no skiing for me]

Video of going down the mountain later, into the clouds. 

Once on top of the mountain (in the middle of the trip, decided to go up to the top, and some kind people charged us not quite the full rate to fix our tickets) , took a quick break to change into hiking boots and rain pants (in case falling in snow) and warm up a bit. View from the restaurant there:



The views were just incredible. There was a natural, rather short, route to walk along where people were skiing (we followed the family who had brought their dog along instead of their skis).

Near the restaurant:



A bit further from the restaurant, one could take a short break and look down at Lake Garda and appreciate the view and the sunshine, above the clouds (which later rolled in a little, but at a lower elevation). Here is very quick video with the same view, panning left to right.



Here is the view from close to the edge of the walk:



I really like the following picture. The walk ended at some fencing. Some people decided to keep walking further, but I think they had snowshoes and maybe an utter lack of self preservation (the descent was rather steep!). The sign clearly directs you to what is likely in summer months a nice hiking path into the valley.



Me sitting on the fencing, Garda lake behind me.

[Walk down from Mt. Baldo, Malcesine]

Took the sky-gondola down the mountain to the middle stop and hiked down from there. It was warm enough to take off the extra outer layers (necessary also in Venice!) and also the thermal trousers. The walk was mostly well signed, used some open street maps to correct when a bit lost.

Views up the mountain: 

Another mountain view:




Warm enough that succulents are doing well in people´s gardens:




Once in Malcesine, walked around their old town and up to the castle (which you can see in both  pictures, at the edge of land/town):



View from Castle in Malcesine:

[Walk around nighttime Verona]

Ended up doing dinner as a picnic in the train home, ended up wandering around Verona at night.
Verona also has an airport with lowcost flights from Frankfurt, and it is a lively (and clearly rich) city, which has also clearly been right a long time. The shopping streets were mainly Italian designers. The buildings were old but well maintained. Lots of young people out enjoying an apero and snacks, or later dinner.



Juliet's balcony was well-visited, and the statue of her had its boobs polished to quite a shine. People had covered all the walls with graffiti, which was being fought in some efforts by the city. The former home of Romeo was more battened down or maybe inhabited than hers. Included picture of people getting pictures with the Juliet statue. There was quite a line. I was not interested.




Cool shop windows (felt more like homes than shops, from layout or furniture quality or art):



Got back to Venice, slept, went to the mainland for Brunch, had some running around that had to be done to make it to the airport, made it home safely. Mainlaind by Venice was not very photogenic.

Ciao and until next time.

2018 Feb 22-25: Venice (part 1)

For the impatient, all pictures may be found in this album on flickr. 

At the end of February, I had earmarked some time to go on a trip, which I decided to go ahead and do despite some complications in life, which also made picking the destination rather last minute and slightly dependent on luck with flight search engines.

Venice had the cheapest airfare and shortest flight (and easiest way from the airport), and is one of those things one should see before they become entirely submerged and unlivable in the next 50 years or so.

Thus, Venice in February, after the Carnival, with its 2wks/1 month of masked balls.

hand made masks on display in a shop

[Thursday: Arrival]

Maybe the post-festivities energy drain lead to some of the feel. The rest was likely the weather, and the general feel of Venice to be a floating sarcophagus, a museum of a city, with no real residents, no local children, no schools.

Stepping of the rather short flight resulted in immediately being drenched with cold rain and battered around by winds that snaked around buildings and along canals. This was not an auspicious start. Some of the evening was used for getting back to the mainland to a store to buy rain pants and a cheap rain jacket to throw atop the semi-permeable one I had brought along.

Stayed at Alberghiera Venezia  (positives: floor heating, big windows, kitchen, comfy bed (firmish mattress), very thick walls, clearly recently renovated. Like staying in your own rather nice apartment)

Discovered that the train station has a really great sandwich/snack shop of which I wanted to eat everything, it looked so delicious:

[Friday: Seeing Venice. Water taxi, Cathedral, Bridges]

The thing you should do in Venice for sure is take one of the water taxis. 

It is hard to convey how surreal they are.

As a warm up, here is a picture of a boat designed for construction-y type use. Like a Venetian digger/crane/whatever they are called.

• A short video of the trip which I took.
• Another short video. 

Some pictures from the water taxi: 

There is a neat art installation highlight the general sinking state of Venice:

Landed at the canonical place, near the canonical church. 

 Walked by the market which was shutting down, and took a lot of pictures of seagulls fighting over the scraps. 

The water is a weird greenblue. It really offsets the bright buildings well. And the sort of dilapidation as well.

Walking around (and up and down the many bridges):

Came across some stores with lovely store fronts. One had four displays of people-sized people doing various crafty/artisanal things. 

Another cool shop window, full of jellyfish lamps:

Turns out, there is only one disco in Venice. It is, as you might expect, sort of tiny.  Left picture is the door, right is the sign above the doorbell. 

Next post is part 2: Lake Garda, Mount Baldo