The Roman Odeon is found just outside the centre of
Kos Town and easily walkable from anywhere in the capital. It’s also right next door to
Casa Romana so you can definitely view both in one visit.
The original Odeon dates back to around the first or second centuries AD, so that’s over one thousand eight hundred years old. It consists of 14 rows of seats, 9 of which were restored in the 1990s with only the top 5 rows left as they were. It’s thought that originally there would have been a roof and a capacity for 750 people.
The Roman Odeon would have been used as a place of entertainment, with musical performances and other events put on here. It’s also believed that the Odeon, or a building that stood in it’s place before it was used for the local authority meetings.
The first excavation of the Odeon was started in 1929 by the Italian archaeologist Luciano Laurenzi, some restoration took place in 1929 too but the main restoration wasn’t started until 1994 and took 5 years.
There’s no entrance fee to visit the Odeon and there’s a small free car park right outside too, if that’s full then you can easily park at the larger car park by Casa Romana and walk to the Odeon which is just a couple of minutes on foot.
