It was a full-sized coach that came to pick
us up at the hotel this morning, rather than the minibus that took us from the
airport on Thursday, and we had a few more pick-up points before rejoining the
main road to the airport, meaning that we saw a little more of the northern
coast of Kos on our way back. It was a mixed bag – a few more very nice-looking
hotels and resorts (although I would have to say none as nice as our boutique
hotel – already I am biased) and some of the more typical Mediterranean hotels.
The rule that says that where a few decent-sized value hotels are gathered
together, there you will find a ‘super-market’, a shop selling beach towels and
cheap souvenirs, and a bar/restaurant, very possibly advertising the
availability of Sky Sports, seems to hold good here as it does for so many
destinations favoured by British holidaymakers.
Riding along in the coach, and enjoying the
scenery, I was surprised by how far we climbed up as we came away from the
coast. The mountains, often with a topping of cloud, have been part of the
background for the last few days, and I had forgotten that we had descended
from part way up in the dark on Thursday night. Many of the buildings are
topped with solar panels –sensible, I suppose, in a climate like this, and as Nicky
had noticed when we were strolling into Kos town, the solar panel apparatus
includes a large metallic cylinder. I’ve no idea how that forms part of the
necessary power generation, maybe I should look it up sometime. Also from the
bus we noticed lots more of the model churches by the roadside, often in the
front gardens of houses. Maybe a way of sharing your devotion with the wider
world, a symbol of bringing your faith back home – perhaps another question for
Wikipedia at some point.
The impression was that the range and
variety of buildings along the roadside was pretty wide, but then again, maybe
that’s just a factor of unfamiliarity with a new country and a destination we
haven’t visited before. There always seems to be far more unfinished construction
projects than I am used to in places like this – lots of concrete shells that
are yet to be filled in. There was one just along the road from our hotel, and
I wonder whether we will see much progress with it next time that we visit (he
said hopefully!). The concrete shells often have the steel reinforcing rods
poking out of the ends (I can claim some degree of familiarity with this
construction technique – after all, one of my clients supplies the steel rods
to the construction industry, and another one of them uses them in building the
concrete frames), but the strange thing that I noticed was that there were
quite a few finished buildings which still had the rods sticking up out of
their roofs. Some were straight, and some had been bent over at the top so that
they resembled walking canes. Surely this can’t be a sensible thing to do –
won’t the rain run down the steel rods and into the concrete causing it to
weaken?
Once we got to the airport, check-in and
security were pretty straightforward (including the compulsory numpties arguing
with the check-in staff about their baggage allowance and trying to re-pack
cases at the desk) and it looks like we are the only flight going out in the
next few hours.
