Kardamena is located in the south of Kos, with long, beautiful sandy beaches to the west and east. However, since Kos has an airport with direct flights from many German and English destinations, there are many huge hotel castles near these beaches. The nice little village with its likewise small harbour is virtually overrun by tourists when the excursion boats leave for the volcanic island of Nisyros in the morning - the same picture back in the evening. But the village has largely kept its nice character and we liked it.
Above the village, a 5km walk through olive groves and bare macchia-grown rugged volcanic landscape inhabited only by goats, lies the Johannite fortress of Antimachia, with a wide view over the sea - and over the hotel castles. At the entrance is a Greek man in classic Efzone costume who explains some of the history to us.
Here in Kardamena, Claudia's sailing time with us was over, her friend Pepi came from Thessaloniki and they both went to Kalymnos to hike.
When we left for Astypaleia after a few days, we had to leave (early because of the long distance) before the excursion ships styled as pirate ships and it came as it had to: an excursion ship had laid its anchor over our chain when mooring the evening before and we were stuck. Gisela, who now has a lot of experience with anchor salad in Vathys on Kalymnos, directed our boat, which was stuck in the harbour, forwards, backwards, to the right and to the left until our anchor had slid out from under the other chain. Meanwhile, the captain of the excursion boat stood on his bridge and watched the spectacle. After half an hour we were free and off we went towards Astypaleia.
Kardamena has a decisive advantage, which is another reason why we liked it here: You pay neither mooring fees nor water nor electricity - everything is free. It was easy for us to put up with the fact that all the big screens in the bars and kafenions were showing the celebrations for Queen Elizabeth's funeral for a whole day.
