Rhodes, Greece

It’s a last minute package holiday but Rhodes has so much history I thought I’d capture a quick blog post.

The flight direct from Dublin is just under five hours so it’s a decent distance to this island that sits in the Aegean Sea, only a short distance from Turkey. We are staying in Ialysos which is on the west coast (facing Turkey) and only a ten/fifteen minute bus ride into Rhodes town.

Ialysos has a stony beach, similar to most in Rhodes, with not much of a promenade so it’s tricky to get a long walk in on the actual beach. The water is not that cold though, so nice for a dip if you can get over the stones in one piece!

We start with a little bit of this:

But then it’s time to hit the town and check out some of the history….. The first port of call and highest priority on my list is to see Mandraki harbour, where the Colossus of Rhodes once stood. It doesn’t look much now but imagine a monstrous statue standing with one foot on each side where the columns now are.

The fort of St Nicholas is situated at the end of the harbour and was built in Byzantine times and later enhanced by the Knights of St John (aka the Knights Hospitaller) as part of the fortification of the city. The Knights play a huge part in the history of Rhodes. They were a medieval catholic military organization headquartered in Rhodes, Jerusalem and Malta.

We walk toward the walled city which enclosed the old town of Rhodes or Rodos as the locals call it. I thought this huge “bunch” of flowers was very cleverly done:

There are lots of great views out to the sea…

And many different gates and walkways to explore…

There are a total of eleven gates into the old town and we enter via one of the biggest and I might add, the grandest:

The town is full of old buildings, shops and restaurants. This is the library:

After checking out the main square and some of the shops we chose a rooftop restaurant for a spot of lunch. It’s definitely time for gyros.

Getting back to the Knights, (not to be mistaken by the Knights Templar by the way!), we make our way to the entrance of the Palace of the Grand Master:

The Grand Master was the head of the organization and resided in this palace which acted as the headquarters for the Knights. The inside courtyard:

The ground floor houses an exhibit of ancient artifacts and I mean ancient… prettty much everything was dated BC. It was really impressive but no photos allowed of the amazing tiny statues, kitchenware and jewelry… it’s hard to believe they remain in such good condition.

From the exhibit on the ground floor we ascended a very grand staircase and got to walk around the rooms of the palace.

The rooms were very impressive

There were some very interesting original mosaics

More splendor of the palace rooms:

And the grand courtyard:

We leave the palace and walk down the Avenue of the knights which is where the knights lived. Each house was for a different country – England, Spain, Italy, France etc..

There were lots of little side streets and alleyways with houses marked as former houses of the knights….. this is the busiest spot for tourists

After rambling around some more we head back to our resort for a relaxing dinner by the beach followed by a relaxing day by the pool. The following day we are up early for our day trip to Lindos. Lindos is on the southeast part of the island and we are going there by boat. We set off from Mandraki harbour for a three hour relaxing boat trip in the beautiful sunshine. Our first stop is at Anthony Quinn bay for a quick swim:

Back on the boat for some relaxing sleepy time in the sunshine! After another couple of hours we start to approach Lindos….

Lindos is famous for its acropolis and I’m very excited to get to see it. Some of the remains of the buildings date back BC, others to the 10th and 13th century… I love a Greek column so can’t wait to climb up to the top and get close to this important archeological site.

We disembark the boat and have three hours to see the sites, which for us is essentially the acropolis. Some people opt to ride a donkey up the hill…

…but Miriam and I are happy to climb up and take in the views and the cute little town along the way

Although it’s steep it’s not as far as it looks and the views really are stunning

On the way up we see the Church of st George:

The acropolis itself is stunning and one photo just doesn’t do it justice so here’s a few!!

We continue to admire the views on the way back down and before returning to the boat (and after a delicious lunch on the beach), we go in for a quick dip.. the beach is sandy and the water is shallow and calm – ideal (well for me that is!).

The boat journey back is just as pleasant as on the way out and we have a second swimming stop at Tsampika beach.

Back in Rhodes we walk around the moat which gives us a different perspective of the walled city:

We see these stone balls everywhere, I think they may have been ammunition!

We walk from the old town through the new town to the other side of town!! From here we have a nice sunset view at a restaurant called Oceanfront:

Rhodes was a great place to visit and we had many more good meals and fun on the island for the rest of the week. Yamas!