The town of KÓS, home to over half of the island's population, spreads in all directions from the harbor, with most of its charm residing in scattered ancient and medieval antiquities. Apart from the Knights' castle, the first thing you see on arrival, there's a wealth of Hellenistic and Roman remains, many of which were only revealed by an earthquake in 1933, and excavated subsequently by the Italians, who also planned and laid out the "garden suburb" extending east of the central grid. Elsewhere, vast areas of open space alternate with a hotchpotch of Ottoman monuments and later mock-medieval or Art Deco buildings.
The castle (Tues-Sun 8am-2.30pm; ?2.40) is reached via a causeway over its former moat, now filled in and planted with palms (hence the avenue's Greek name, Finíkon). The existing double citadel, which was built in stages between 1450 and 1514, replaced an original fourteenth-century fort deemed not capable of withstanding advances in medieval artillery. A fair proportion of ancient Koan masonry has been recycled into the walls, where the escutcheons of several Grand Masters of the Knights of St John can also be seen.
Immediately opposite the castle entrance stands the riven trunk of Hippocrates' plane tree, its branches now propped up by scaffolding instead of the ancient columns of yore; at seven hundred years of age, it's not really elderly enough to have seen the great healer, though it has a fair claim to being one of the oldest trees in Europe. Adjacent are two Ottoman fountains (a dry hexagonal one and a working one in an ancient sarcophagus) and the eighteenth-century mosque of Hassan Pasha , also known as the Loggia Mosque after the portico on one side; its ground floor - like that of the Defterdar mosque on Platía Eleftherías - is taken up by rows of shops.
Opposite the latter stands the Italian-built Archeological Museum (Tues-Sun 8am-2.30pm; ?2.40), with a predictable Latin bias in the choice of exhibits. Four rooms of statuary are arrayed around an atrium with a mosaic of Hippocrates welcoming Asklepios to Kós; the most famous item, purportedly a statue of Hippocrates, is indeed Hellenistic, but most of the other highly regarded works (such as Hermes seated with a lamb) are Roman.
The largest single section of ancient Kós is the agora, a sunken, free-access zone containing a confusing jumble of ruins, owing to repeated earthquakes between the second and sixth centuries AD. More comprehensible are the so-called western excavations, lent definition by two intersecting marble-paved streets and the Xystos or restored colonnade of a covered running track. In the same area lie several floor mosaics, such as the famous one of Europa being carried off by Zeus in the form of a bull, though these tend to be off-limits or hidden under protective gravel. To the south, across Grigoríou toú Pémptou, are a garishly restored Roman-era odeion and the Casa Romana (Tues-Sun 8.30am-3pm; ?1.50), a third-century-AD house built around three atria with surviving patches of mos-aic floors showing panthers and tigers, plus assorted sea creatures.
Kós also retains a thoroughly commercialized old town, lining the pedestrianized street running from behind the market hall on Platía Eleftherías as far as Platía Dhiagóras and the isolated minaret overlooking the western archeological zone. One of the few areas of town to survive the 1933 earthquake, today it's crammed with expensive tourist boutiques, cafés and snack bars. About the only genuinely old thing remaining here is a capped Turkish fountain with a calligraphic inscription, found where the walkway cobbles cross Odhós Venizélou. |
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