The plan for today, such as it was, was to spend a day on the sunbeds on Tigaki beach. After a bit of a lie in, we went down to the beachfront, selected some comfy looking beds and quickly realised that it was way too windy. I already had earache in one ear after just twenty minutes of goosebump inducing wind. We packed up and had a commiseratory sugared doughnut from a bakery café on our way back to the hotel where we had lunch.
We shared a ham and cheese pitta and a Greek salad. It always amazes me how good pitta bread is in Greece in comparison to the dried out crap they sell in the UK as ‘pitta’; it bears no comparison and apologies if I do a mention this again in subsequent posts. If I had any entrepreneurial spirit I would look into setting up an import business for ‘proper pitta’.
After lunch we went for a walk down to the salt lake, the edge of the nudist beach and then back along the shoreline to Tigaki. The salt lake, at least where we had a look, was pretty dull. I was expecting something along the lines of Rutland water or the lake near Koukanaries Beach in Skaithos, but all we saw was stinky mud and run down empty graffiti covered buildings. No flamingos.
We went back to the same bakery café and I had an excellent slice of apple pie. I think the café is called ‘Whatever’. An odd name. There was a handwritten note on a couple of the tables’ menus from the previous owners about selling up, making lemonade out of lemons, etc. so I assumed it was newly opened or had changed hands recently.
We then lounged at the hotel pool until about a quarter to seven. Back in our apartment even Siggy had had enough with the temperamental shower and so after a bit of diagnosis from myself we went and reported the problem to reception. The cold water kept cutting out rather than anything being wrong with the hot water and it was unrelated to the gardener using the hosepipe outside.
We went to the Meni Restaurant for our tea. I ordered ‘crispy duck breast with caramelised pumpkin’ which when it arrived was not crispy and had no pumpkin on it. In fact I would go so far as to say that it was the most badly cooked bit of duck I’ve ever had – being over done on the inside (not at all pink or tender) and rubbery on the outside. I stripped the fat off it as best I could with the blunt knife and grumblingly ate the chewy meat. They had also already got our drinks order wrong and Siggy’s moussaka wasn’t up to much either. It’s the sort of place that serves food on pieces of slate with angular knives and forks that have been ‘designed’.
We didn’t leave a tip and while we went back to their excellent bar next door we won’t ever go back there or to their other restaurant which is back up the road somewhat, and about which I heard bad things about from a fellow Mayflower guest. Something about some badly cooked lamb chops. I got the feeling that the Brits, Scandinavians, Germans, Austrians and Russians who were dining had all got as equally easily sucked in by the fancy décor, apparently super-efficient staff and the extensive wine list but that they would all ultimately be equally as disappointed with the food as we were.
We had cocktails at three different bars and a lot of peanuts and checked out the weather reports. It is apparently going to be as windy tomorrow as it was today so we’re going to catch the bus to Kos Town. While we were wandering around we noticed a lot of posters up for a singer who looks like an air-brushed vampire.
The shower had been fixed when we got back. It looked like they had replaced the tap unit – maybe a dodgy valve on the cold tap? Later in the week we noticed a bulge in the wall above the sink which when pressed gave the impression that it was holding a bubble of water behind it. We kept an eye on it for the remainder of the holiday, but it went unreported as there’s only so much embarrassment I can take with hotel staff. Hopefully the cleaners or the next guests will notice it…
All photos: Copyright 2015 Matthew Haynes
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