The breakfast buffet turned out to be pretty good—a decent spread of hot options like bacon and eggs, along with fresh bread, cheese, pancakes, fruit, and velvet cake. On my way back to the room, I asked at reception once more about borrowing an HDMI cable, but they immediately pointed me toward a local electronics store instead. Fair enough—I guess lending out TV cables isn’t part of the service!
At ten, I headed down to the pool. All the sunbeds currently in the sun were already taken, so I strategically picked one that would be bathed in sunlight shortly. I brought out my e-reader and spent the next hours in a peaceful rhythm, switching between reading on my lounger and cooling off in a corner of the pool. Tomorrow, I’ll aim for a sunbed with a side table!
Around two in the afternoon, I ordered a chicken club sandwich, looking for a light lunch since I hadn’t exactly been burning many calories. What arrived was a massive mountain of fries with a few sandwich quarters tucked alongside it. Safe to say, dinner will have to wait a while.
Between chapters, I enjoyed doing a bit of people-watching. You can instantly spot the seasoned pool veterans—they come prepared with giant pegs to clip their towels to the loungers, and the men wear Speedos rather than swim trunks to maximize their tan. The crowd is mostly older guests, along with a few younger couples and two families with kids. Thankfully, the children aren’t loud at all and just add a pleasant background hum to the atmosphere. It’s also clear that only a fraction of the hotel guests actually use the pool area, considering how packed the breakfast room was. Unfortunately, smoking is allowed around the pool, but thankfully there don’t seem to be too many smokers.
During the afternoon, I received a call from a private number. “Hello, this is Jens from Apollo,” the caller said. “Yes, this is Jens!” I replied, to which he chuckled and mentioned that his name was Jens too. He was just calling to check in, make sure everything was going well with my stay, and let me know I could reach out if I needed anything. Nice touch!
After six hours of intense relaxation and reading, rotating between the pool and the sunbed, I settled my tab and headed back up to the room. I can’t remember when I did “nothing” for six hours before. It felt good! Following a refreshing shower, I called my mum to catch up. We ended up chatting for an hour, after which I took a well-deserved nap.
By six, with the sun set to drop in about an hour, I decided to head out west to watch it sink over the horizon. I got dressed, packed my Wi-Fi hotspot, phone tripod, and e-reader, and set off towards the coast. It wasn’t far, but as I approached the shore, the wind picked up significantly. The waves were crashing quite high against the coast, and I found a bench on a pier where I could sit back and take in the view. A small crowd had gathered along the shore and pier doing the exact same thing—it was truly beautiful!
Afterwards, I wandered back into town without any set plan, other than hunting for flip-flops and that elusive HDMI cable. I actually managed to find both! Now I’m fully equipped for smoother pool trips and proper TV streaming back in the room.
After dropping off my purchases at the hotel, I went back out to find dinner, landing at Ouzo Alli Istoria. I asked the waiter if they could mix a sweet non-alcoholic cocktail, but he gave me a rather skeptical look before offering a non-alcoholic Aperol Spritz instead. It was probably the first time I’ve had one. It was okay, but not really something I’d order again. The food, however, was delicious, and even when a lady at the neighboring table lit a cigarette, I still had a lovely time reading my book over dinner.
Since I hadn’t wandered too far from the hotel, I was back in no time. I grabbed my laptop from the room and settled into the hotel bar to look into day trips to Lindos and write today’s blog post. The bartender had two mocktails on the menu—a Piña Colada and a Mojito—along with a few other alcohol-free options. I went with the Piña Colada to wrap up the evening.
