Turkish Letters (go offshore) #14 -- Cos (Shiralee)

Cos was our first taste of Greece -- and we spent most of our time finding the ways in which it was not like Turkey. Which was lucky really because there isn't a lot in Cos to occupy one otherwise.

The ferry trip from Bodrum to Cos had been remarkable for its complete lack of incident, The sea was as smooth as the blue silk it completely resembled, the only ripples caused by the wake of our little ferry. The only breeze was a result of our steady forward movement. Again we questioned how so many boats had managed to wreck themselves on this coast. They must have been in the grip of some massively self-destructive mania because it would take real determination to sink on this millpond.

Cos was promising from the sea. The sun was shining and skies as blue as an advertising poster. A large and impressively complete looking fortress -- another of those Knights of St John numbers -- jutted out from the harbour. The ferry berthed alongside it. Unfortunately this was probably the highpoint. Not that there was anything wrong with Cos -- it was just that it was rather like visiting Canberra only on an island.

We found a cheapish pensione in the 'Old Town'; more precisely, Irini the proprietor of said establishment had found us. She was waiting, like a small, dishevelled shark, at the dock with pictures of her other, far more luxurious, hotel at hand. Seeing us looking around indecisively, she swooped. We were grateful to not have to search the streets for somewhere to stay. Her pensione was remarkable on several counts #1. It was a tangible demonstration of acoustic anomalies for one thing. Its wiring had obviously been installed by a blind plumber in some pre-Jurassic age. Its plumbing put in by a thalidomide-affected bricklayer. But perhaps it was the grubbiness that was its standout feature. For the first night I thought we were sharing our room with a Latin Lotherio - but he had simply left his essence - eaue de cheap aftershave, hair-oil and sweat -- soaked into a pillow.

Pensione Irini was probably the oldest thing in the Old Town. Its name perhaps indicated that the original township had once been there. Which made sense. It is just behind the fortress so its inhabitants would have been able to bolt for its safety at the first hint of an Ottoman fleet. If the knights let them in.

It does have a couple of other old things left. An excavated Hellenic agora and temple complex -- aka hole in the ground with bits of marble lying about providing shelter for myriads of cats #2 and picturesque backdrops for clumps of wildflowers.

A (possibly) Byzantine church with thick white pillars and age-darkened murals dominates a square bordered by an Ottoman bedestan (market) that was being renovated to within an inch of its authenticity.

A crumbling Ottoman mosque, remarkable for its carvings of lions including one as a draped pelt, obviously houses tourist stalls during the season. This is hard by the only memento of Cos's most famous son, Hippocrates, who was born and can have only spent very brief periods on the island. This does not stop the Cosians from claiming that the enormous rotted hulk of a plane tree is the very one under which he taught. Given that it would have to be 2400 years old, this is very unlikely.

Healing, however, has obviously been a Cosian fixation from times immemorial. On the evidence of the small Archaeological Museum, Cos was simply packed to the gunnels with temples and shrines dedicated to Hygenia (?) and her healing serpents and Hippocrates and his healing serpent.

The Archaeology Museum has some very lovely bits of statues, some still with traces of their original polychroming. It was also noteworthy for the unwillingness of its custodians to actually let people in. And then the assiduity with which they invigilated. Eagle-eyed scrutiny is understating their vigilance. I think they suspected we were going to attempt to take home all the bits that the Brits had accidentally left behind. Having got used to the casual attitudes of Turkish museum guards, this was rather unnerving. It put an absolute crimp in our intention to photograph the buggery out of everything. Somehow the guards managed to insinuate themselves into every mid-shot we attempted. And they made loud disapproving sighing noises whenever we closed in for a close-up on something.

Cos had other holes in the ground with associated rubble. The western Excavations feature a tiny bit of rebuilt temple, a scrap of mosaic flooring that vandals had left prey to the weather and a nymphonieum which was almost completely hidden from human sight. This latter we discover descending a staircase and peering on tiptoes through the barred window of the rough building that was protecting it. Across the road is a tiny rebuilt Hellenic theatre. That is about it.

Everything else is closed. The Temple of Dionysus is closed. The Roman house is closed (although its signage did promise it would open 5 th of January 2006 and it was certainly after that date.) Various other un-signaged holes were fenced off.

All that left us was a visit to the cemetery. Hidden behind high walls and thick with old cypresses, it includes the untended graves of generations of priests and a tiny chapel. The rest of the graves were a riot of artificial flowers, candles, lamps, icons, statuettes and memorabilia.

That about exhausted the cultural possibilities of Cos. Buses to other villages left once a day and immediately turned around for the trip back into Cos town. We searched the town for the 'Colourful Cos' of the tourist posters. Wherever this place is, it certainly isn't in Cos town which has been completely filled up with indentitkit hotels and apartments. We tried to go for a long walk to the countryside, but new housing estates made that an unattainable goal. We did discover the very depressing Jewish cemetery. Completely untended, it was a sad contrast to the G.O. graveyard.

After that all we could do was sit around in cafes and bars and wait for the thrice weekly ferry to Rhodes.

#1 To be fair, most of the places we have stayed have been remarkable for similar reasons. But also relatively cheap.

#2 And small dogs. We encountered one small band that consisted of two small black and white puppies and their leader -- a very feisty fluffy tortoiseshell kitten. One of the endearing things about both Cos and Rhodes was the number of older men who obviously took it upon themselves to provide for the street animals. Most of the animals we saw were positively plump. The animals at the agora were fed by a white-haired chap who arrived with a shopping bag full of tins of dogfood. At the sound of his scooter cats appeared from every direction.