Greek Island of Kos
photo by Eric Borda

Kos (also spelt Cos) is a Greek island in the Aegean, near the Turkish coast.

Understand

The island of Kos is part of the Dodecanese. It is the third largest of this group of islands and the second most popular and touristy island after Rhodes. It is located between Kalymnos and Nysiros. It is very well organised and has everything in terms of tourism infrastructure.

Regions

The island is part of a chain of mountains from which it became separated after earthquakes and subsidence that occurred in ancient times. These mountains include Kalymnos and Kappari which are separated by an underwater chasm c. 70 m (40 fathoms deep), as well as the volcano of Nisyros and the surrounding islands.

There is a wide variety of rocks in Kos which is related to its geographical formation. Prominent among these are the Quaternary layers in which the fossil remains of mammals such as horses, hippopotami and elephants have been found. The fossilised molar of an elephant of gigantic proportions was presented to the Paleontology Museum of the University of Athens.

The shores of Kos Island are washed by the waters of the Aegean Sea. Its coastline is 112 km long and is caressed by long immaculate beaches, leading to its main industry being tourism. Farming is the principal occupation of many of the island's inhabitants, with their main crops being grapes, almonds, figs, olives, and tomatoes, along with wheat and corn. Cos lettuce may be grown here, but the name is unrelated.

The main villages of Kos island are Kardamena, Kefalos, Tingaki, Antimachia, Mastihari, Marmari and Pyli. Smaller ones are Zia, Zipari, Platani, Lagoudi and Asfendiou.

Getting there

There are daily flights from Athens airport by Olympic Air and Aegean Airlines .

Ryanair offers flights from Frankfurt-Hahn and Milan-Bergamo.

From May till October charter airlines fly directly to Kos from many European airports.

It is also possible to take a ferry from Turkish coasts, Bodrum and Datça.

Sleep

  • Artemis Hotel , Lambi, Kos Town, Artemis hotel apartments is located in Lambi area, just 1km from the harbour and Kos town center. The most popular beach of Kos island is just 150m away.

  • Sunny Days Hotel , Tigaki, It is situated at Tigaki of Kos 500 meters from the beach.

Contact & location

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The photos displayed on this page are the property of one of the following authors:

Eric Borda, bazylek100, Kees Wielemaker, maxilgatto

Some photos courtesy of: . The photos provided by Flickr are under the copyright of their owners.

This travel guide also includes text from Wikitravel articles, all available at WikitravelView full credits

Claus Hansen, John, Wandering and Andrew Haggard, Burmesedays, Whatsinaname, Tatatabot, Episteme, Sailsetter, DorganBot, Valtteri and Pashley

This travel guide also includes text from Wikipedia articles, all available at WikipediaView full credits

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