Kos

Kos is a Greek island in the Dodecanese, long and flat, lying a few miles off the Turkish coast. Sand runs almost without a break, from the pale shore of Paradise Beach to the coves of Agios Stefanos Beach, where two early Christian basilicas crumble in front of a rocky islet. Hippocrates was born here, and the sick were already being treated at the Asclepieion, a terraced sanctuary looking out to sea from the hillside. Every ruler left something in the same few streets: Roman mosaics at the Casa Romana of Kos, palm avenues and 1930s Italian civic buildings, the whitewashed lanes of Kos Old Town. It is one of the few Greek islands flat enough to cover by bicycle, on level paths lined with oleander. Up in the hills, the village of Zia fills every evening for the sunset. Peacocks roam free under the pines of Plaka Forest, and fish is served at tables set all but in the water.