Saturday 27th June
Today has been a hot one spent mainly by the pool. At lunchtime we went to the nearby bakery where I got a very moist pecan and toffee cake – a bit like sticky toffee pudding without the sauce – a mini wini sausage roll and two drinks – cherry juice and a chocolate milkshake – neither of which lasted very long.
At around four o’clock I got frustrated by families monopolising the pool. I got a few widths in earlier in the day but when the inflatable lilo races began the pool was effectively off limits to anyone else. I convinced Siggy to go for a stroll around the back roads so we could get some much needed exercise.
We followed a back road to Zipari. It is a lot more residential feeling that Tigaki or Marmari and an interesting insight into how people on this part of the island live. For instance we found an ice cream and cake shop next to the main road and while I waited to be served the local chap in front of me was getting a plastic box loaded up with all sorts of flavoured scoops of ice cream and then after I’d been served another couple of locals did the same thing.
It seems like this is pretty standard behaviour and the fact that this shop had row upon row of hand crafted delicate looking cakes leads me to believe that the Greeks on Kos have a taste for dainty cakes and ice cream. The must have to rush back home before the stuff melts though – which might explain the crazy driving.
We walked back via to Tigaki via the beachfront road where it felt a lot windier than at the hotel. We’re trying the beach tomorrow, so I hope it dies down. The woman in the windmill yesterday said that it gets windy enough to turn the shaft at 60 rpm.
We were out for about two hours and with the usual level of fannying about required to get out down town for tea it felt like we were running late. So we popped into one of the closest tavernas on the same road as the bakery – Sunshine taverna. I had a gut achingly sized Greek plate and the staff members were very chatty and friendly. The waitress expressed her concern over the ever increasing width of the nudist beach among other topics. I asked her how it had formed and that she said that it was set up by Brits in the 1970s. I was expecting her to say it was the Germans or the Swedes, so that was me told on that score.
We popped into ‘The Bar’ which is attached to Meni’s other restaurant and is typically trying to be cool and chic among all the other ‘couldn’t care less, let’s just have some fun’ cocktail bars. I had a sufficiently fancy gin-based cocktail and then we went to the more comfortable, less up themselves, atmosphere of Memories. I just had a large Alpha for a change.
The gin, the large amount of food, the walk, fresh air and cumulative disturbed sleeps (given up trying to wear my earplugs because if I use them too much they give me earache) led me to not really ‘feeling it’ tonight. Usually we have a night off from alcohol when we’re on holiday and perhaps this should have been the night.
On a positive note the basil spray appears to be keeping the mosquitos at bay.
All photos: Copyright 2015 Matthew Haynes
couchmagpie 