Kos & Nissyros, Greece

If you like stunning sceneries, clear blue skies, crystal clear intense blue sea, warm, dry and windy weather, in non-crowded areas inhabited by warmhearted and welcoming people, great food, olive trees & oil, in a landscape shaped by thousands of years of a very rich history, and fascinating myths and legends, chances are high that you will enjoy visiting the Greek islands like Kos, the island of the father of medicine Hippocrates.


Out of the many lodging options on the island, here is an interesting one, right by the sea on the south shore, a short drive from the airport. The Mitsis Blue Domes Hotel is located 4 kilometers east of Kardamena, the nearest town, where Google wrongly places the resort. It is advertized as an all-inclusive five-star plus hotel. Most families come there because of its kids club, where parents can drop off their kids from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and then from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. The hotel is not just targeting families. All kinds of travelers should find their own spot and have a good time there.

For families, the kids have some much fun at the kids club, they beg the parents to come back there everyday, as soon as it opens. A perfect win-win situations for the kids and parents. There are even evening animations for the kids. A special park and castle was built for the children to play, with its own pool and slides. Inside, the rooms are just huge. The animation team takes good care of the children, always welcoming and in excellent mood, often still on location late in the evening for the kids show.


The whole staff in the entire hotel is outstanding, in all restaurants, at the beach, the pools, the bars, and at the gates. They are all highly motivated and all pull in the same direction to make your experience the best as possible. The staff members come from all over Europe for the season, and many are Greek from the mainland, with a few coming directly from Kos and the nearby town of Kardamena. The animation team especially, is quite astonishing. For those interested, there is always something going on in the morning and in the afternoon, stretching, yoga, zumba & fitness. In the evening that team presents a show at their main theatre next the reception, more targeted for families. For others there is the bar & lounge by the pool with musician and singer, in a more casual and quite atmosphere.


The resort is just huge. There is always enough room for everybody without ever feeling crowded. There are seawater swimming pools everywhere, a total of more than 600 meters in length. Two big pipes pump the seawater daily to regenerate the pool water. And there is obviously the beach and its endless blue sea. The nice thing about the hotel is that it is entirely car free, with no road separating the hotel from the shoreline, which is often the case in other hotels.

The design of the buildings, pools and park make it very visually pleasant to enjoy. A lot of marble was used around the pools, and inside the bedrooms and bathrooms. Interestingly, marble is often considered to be too cold by many when used inside living areas, but under this kind of 36-degree latitude, it feels just right.

The food is excellent. You have plenty of choices for that. There is the large buffet restaurant near the reception. From there, the overlooking view on the sea is breathtaking. Hostesses will welcome you with unbelievable smiles, and will make sure you are promptly assisted. Waiters & waitresses are always there for you to help you find the right table. The choice of food is excellent with a great variety of products from different cuisines.

Half way to the beach, there are six small excellent restaurants, a Greek, a burger, a sushi, a Greek pita, another one with German style food, and a sweet corner for crepes, ice creams and other desserts. The concept is just terrific. It feels exactly like eating in a regular restaurant, for as long as you want, as little or as much as you want, with waiters and waitresses coming directly to your table, with an even better sense of service than in most restaurants. All of this, without having to wait for the check or carry around a wallet. The Greek restaurant was just unique. There was not a single dish that was average. All top notch fresh food and prepared on location.

Another option is the restaurants by the beach, which are open at lunch and dinnertime, with a choice of Greek, Italian, Asian or Mexican food. This place is yet another class on its own. First, the location, by the beach, next to a large pool, feeling calm and secluded. Its welcoming host and hostess, with an excellent professionalism and welcoming attitude will promptly accommodate you and seat you in the restaurant of your choice. In the restaurant, the waiters will do their best to assist you. If your kid wants something not from their menu, but on the one from the nearby restaurant, this won't be a problem.


Finally there is the beach snack during the day, where you can grab a sandwich, drink, fresh fruits, ice creams or drinks, a very convenient option when you want to eat something light and simple. Right next to it, two ladies cook daily a typical Greek dish, the spanakopita. It's a simple dish made of chopped spinach, ground beef, feta cheese and onions wrapped inside paper thin sheets of dough. A real delight.


What could be improved? Not much. I can only think of three small items.

The free wifi is in a large room by the reception, with a shared connection, which is very difficult to use during the busy lunch and dinnertime hours. In the rest of the hotel there is a paid wifi. Maybe improving the free wifi bandwidth would be nice. The sure thing is that walking unplugged for several days was definitely the best thing that could happen.

By the pools free mattresses are tough to find. Some wake up at wee hours to book them with a towel. If you are not an early bird you will never get one. Some remain booked and unused for the main part of the day. Some signs in nearby hotels say that the staff would free mattresses that remain unused for more than two hours. That might be an interesting option. Putting more mattresses would be another one, but might make the pools too crowded. At the beach though, it is fairly easy to find a free mattress. It is an island beach resort after all and the beach is a great place to hang out.

Windsurfs can be rented for free. For free if you have a license, or else you have to fork 20 Euros per hour. I yet have to understand who delivers windsurfing licenses. What country? Maybe it's a new thing. Having practiced that sport for as long as I can remember, I never heard of any such license. It would be easy to check if someone knows how to operate a windsurf. A couple of minutes would be enough to clear the way to those who know but don't have a license handy.
The same goes for the catamarans, which can be freely rented with a sailing license, or else it is 40 Euros an hour. Sailing licenses are common. Don't forget to bring yours.


Kos is worth visiting, at the very least for a one day trip across the island, through the mountain villages of Pyli and Zia, down to the main town of Kos, driving along the north shore and what looks like the main windsurf spot, all the way to Kefalos in the West. A car can easily be rented near the hotel reception, and picked up in front of the hotel. Any day will do, the weather is quite easy to predict. It's either going to be sunny, or insanely sunny and great. The force of the wind is the only main varying parameter. There is wind every single day in the Greek Islands, some days way more than others. Several windmills were built on top of the hills of Kos to turn that energy into electricity. Three of them happen to be visible from the Blue Domes on top of the hill above the hotel.


Thousands of years of history have left behind lots of places to visit on the island. You will easily find some information about what floats your boat. It was interesting to see the several military bases along the island. It looks like the proximity of Turkey keeps the military active. The military service duty is by the way still active in Greece.


The rocks are an interesting part of Kos. The geology looks cataclysmic, with the main part of the island made of granite, which has been torn apart by the various tectonic events along the years. It is not rare to walk along large bedrock granite boulders, suddenly overlaid by debris of past volcanic eruptions from the nearby volcanoes.


In order to stop the giant Plybotes from escaping during the war of the giants, Poseidon tore apart a chunk of Kos island and threw it at Polybotes, forming in the process the island of Nissyros, often spelled Nisyros outside of Greece.

From Kardamena, a few travel agencies offer a day trip to Nissyros. None of the two I inquired could tell me if, once on the island, a car could be rented for the day. Instead, they were proposing a package including boat and bus ride to the village of Nikia and the volcano crater. While not being a big fan of bus tours, faced with the uncertainty of not being able to move freely on the island, the bus tour was booked.

The boat leaves daily at 9:30 a.m., arrives on location a 10:30 a.m. and leaves back for Kardamena at 3:30 p.m.
Five hours is not much time for a visit, which was a bit rushed.
Once on Nissyros, there are actually several options to rent motorbikes, cars and quads. Something to remember for a future trip.


Brief stop at the village of Nikia. Stunning village, which makes one want to stay longer, maybe for a day or too. Spectacular view down to the volcano crater, the sea and nearby islands. Not enough time to climb up the Monastery of Agios Ioanni Theologou at the top of the hill above the village. Maybe for some other time. Already time to leave for the visit of the crater.


The main crater is active. A strong sulfur smell emanates from the holes in the ground. It is actually made of eight smaller craters within this massive caldera. The most active one of them does not seem to be the biggest one where everybody stops, but instead, the one hidden behind a hill, a short hike away from the busses and the crowd. Once there, we can actually discover several sensors and some wiring used to monitor the health of the volcano and maybe help predict its future eruption.

Then back to the town of Mandraki for lunch, with some comfortable time left for a visit until the boat leaves for Kardamena.


Bikes are a widespread mean of transportation in Kos. Some can be rented at the hotel, at a counter right next to where cars can be booked. I would recommend not rent a bike from there. First, the guy who worked there at the time had a too unpredictable schedule, not very dynamic, and was there only if he wanted to. Second, the bikes are old and heavy. A short 10-minute walk along the shoreline to the nearest bike shop will provide you with a better choice of more recent and up-to-date city bikes, mountain bikes and quads. The guys working there are also very professional.


There are tons of dirt roads on the island, and even without a map it is easy to find your way. I would typically head for some visual waypoint, a remote small blue and white Greek church or chapel, and look for a dirt road that leads there. A good option is to first bike up to the top of the nearest hill, visually identify the route, memorize it and go enjoy the thrilling experience of the dry wilderness of these deserted trails on the way down.

The windmills above the hotel are an excellent vantage point for this. On an extremely windy day, the experience was surreal. A warm, dry and tremendously powerful and steady wind, delivering a laminar airflow coming from the North, was feeding the windmill rotors, executing a rotation in roughly 2 seconds. It did not seem like that was fast viewed from the shoreline, but once on top of the hill, that felt tremendously powerful. In comparison, on a calm day, where the wind seems inexistent down at the hotel, they'd still execute a complete spin in 4 to 5 seconds. That turned out to be an excellent indicator of the wind intensity and direction when it was time to decide on the kind of outdoor adventure for the day.


It is not rare to spot beehives in the wilderness. The local Greek thyme honey is excellent. Goats are also the occasional form of pseudo-wild life you will encounter on those trails. They are obviously not wild but it feels like it.


There are so many of these remote and secluded churches and chapels, always perfectly maintained. It opens up this waypoint approach to an endless list of options. In Greece each chapel is dedicated to a specific saint. One per each day of the year, and a special celebration occurs in a given church on that particular day. For instance on August 29 Saint John is celebrated at the Agios Ioannis Monastery near Kefalos.


Swimming is another obvious great choice to alternate between physical activities. Starting from the beach of the hotel, an interesting 4.5-kilometer roundtrip option is to use the church of Aghia Varvara as a turning point. It is located roughly halfway between the hotel and Kardamena and can easily be identified from the water thanks to a tiny chapel positioned on the shoreline, an easy waypoint to spot and aim at while swimming. Kardamena being 4.5 Km away from the Blue Domes, I imagine you could also swim straight to the port of Kardamena and run or take the bus back to the hotel.


There is so much to discover and visit on these two small islands. There are hundreds of these in Greece, making it tempting to come back for another trip. Maybe in a slightly different way, sailing, hopping from island to island. The wind looks stable, steady, and predictable enough to enjoy such journey.