Rhodes belongs to the Dodecanese islands of the southeastern Aegean Sea. Τhe medieval towns of the island are UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Ιt took its name from the rose and the order of the knights of St. John has marked the island, leaving many monuments. One of the most beautyful towns of the world is the capital of Rhodes. The Old Town attracting millions of visitors every year visit the Venetian Castle, the Street of the Knights and the Palace of the Grand Master. Visit the imposing Acropolis of Lindos, the Valley of butterflies, the monastery of Filerimos, do water sports and tours. Lindos, Anthony Quinn, Faliraki, Tsambika, Kallithea and Agathi are some of the best beaches on the island. You must buy an embroidery as a souvenir of this great island.

The Old City of Rhodes with a current population of 6,000 inhabitants is surrounded by medieval walls with seven gates: Gate of the Naval Station, Gate of Agios Ioannis, Gate of Agia Ekaterini, Gate of the Apostle Paul, Gate of Amboise, Gate of Agios Athanassios and the Gate of the Port. To enter any of these gates is to enter another world. Now it happens to be a world of tourist shops, restaurants, cafes and museums, more like a Turkish bazaar than any Greek city, but anyone with imagination can’t help but be touched by the history of the place where a handful of Knights were the last Christian holdouts in a part of the world that had become completely dominated by Muslims, in particular the Ottoman Turks.

When the city finally did fall after a siege that exhausted both defenders and besiegers the remaining Knights were offered safe passage and on January 1st of 1523 left Rhodes along with 5000 of the Christian inhabitants of the island who chose to leave rather than live under the Sultan. In the defense of the city 2000 Christians had died. The Turks had lost 50,000 trying to take it. This is not, however just an old town filled with ghosts of the past. The old city of Rhodes is a living, vibrant community with many homes and business, not all of them connected to tourism.

The Medieval City was divided into three parts: the northern part included the Acropolis of the Knights and the Palace of the Grand Master while the southern part include Hora, were the commoners lived. The Jewish Quarter is the third section and the least developed commercially in terms of tourism and is mostly residential, though the Hora is also residential mixed with bars, restaurants, cafes and shops.

As you enter the city either from the commercial harbor through the Gate of Navarhou or from the new town through the gate of Eleftherias you see the remains of the 3rd century temple of Aphrodite, and behind it is the Lodge of the Knights of Aiberne, built in 1507. Today the building houses the governor’s office. Next to it is the Lodge of the Battalion of England and the first hospital of the Knights, which was built by the Grandmaster in 1440, which today is the Library of the Archaeological Society. The ‘New’ Hospital houses the town’s Archaeological Museum which is impressive not only because of the large number of relics but because the building itself is so monumental and has been the Archaeological museum since 1916. Don’t miss the beautiful Aphrodite of Rhodes (like I did) which is contained in a small room that I somehow didn’t see. The problem with the old city is that after awhile you have seen so many antiquities that your mind goes numb and you wander around like you are in a daze. For that reason I suggest not trying to see it all at once and to plan your trip so you spend a little extra time in Rhodes than you would on an island with less to offer.

The most beautiful and interesting part of the Old City for me is the street of Knights, the most important street of the medieval town. The street is completely restored or preserved beautifully, and is lined by the buildings where the holy warriors spent their time in prayer or military practice though it is hard to imagine this going on simultaneously unless you have ever visited the West Campus residence halls of Duke University. The Street of the Knights stretches from the New Hospital-Archaeological Museum to the Grandmaster’s Palace where the Lodge of the Battalion of France, one of the most beautiful buildings on the island, stands. Next to it stands the chapel of the same name with the beautiful statue of Virgin Mary and the holy infant. The nearby church of Agios Dimitrios is built upon the ruins of the ancient temple of Dionysus.

The Palace of the Grandmaster is the single most impressive site in Rhodes if not all of the Dodekanese Islands and the interior is no less awe-inspiring than the formidable outer walls. Within the enormous castle are relics from the medieval period as well as ancient sculptures and beautiful 1st century floor mosaics which were brought to Rhodes from the island of Kos. For the people of Kos I would be surprised if this is not their version of the Elgin Marbles and as that island’s fortunes fall there may be a movement for their return. A walk through the castle will take about an hour and will bring you through several thousand years of history. There is a medieval snack bar that makes decent coffee and has pastries and sandwiches which is a good meeting place for people who go through museums at different speeds. (I was there for an hour before my wife showed up).

If you want a birds-eye view of the city go to the clock tower where for 4 euros you can climb to the top and trade in your ticket for a drink at the bar when you come down. This building, like many of the buildings in the Old Town is owned by a Turk and the Greek who rents it financed the restoration himself. Rhodes, which was not a part of Greece when the exchange of population between Greeks and Turks took place after the Asia Minor Disaster and fall of Smyrna in 1922 (It became part of Greece in 1948 after having been Italian since it’s capture in 1912. Because of this there are many Turkish people living in the old city, though they are considered Greeks of the Muslim Faith rather than Turks. In fact the population exchange was done by religion and not ethnicity so there are also Greeks in Turkey because at the time of the exchange they were Muslim.

Orffeos Street is a wide road with tourist shops and restaurants near the Gate of Saint Anthony, the Grand Master Palace and the Suleiman Mosque which connects with Socratous street, another main shopping street of the old town. This becomes Aristotelous street when you get to Ippokratous Square which seems to be the commercial center of the town. Aristolelous leads to the Jewish district and the square of the Hebrew Martyrs, the 15th Century Byzantine church of Agia Triada, and Panagia Horas, the largest church in Rhodes. When Suleiman the Magnificent finally took the city they kicked the Greeks out and only the Turks and Jews could live within the city walls. If I had been able to kick the tourists out of the square I could have taken a photo of the monument.

The Turkish Baths on Platia Arionos alternates days for men and women. If you want to experience the pleasures of a real Turkish hamam without going to Turkey then this is one of the few places in Greece you can do it. I happened to come on the woman’s day and didn’t need a bath the following day since I had taken a great shower at the hotel. If you are thinking Saint Marks Baths, as in NYC, they are not like that, nor are they like the mineral baths of Lesvos.

The Old City of Rhodes, which incidentally is a World Heritage Site, is in my opinion after the Acropolis of Athens and the Volcano of Santorini, the most impressive place in Greece. To wander through the medieval city, whether it is with crowds of tourists or in the off-season when they are gone, is one of life’s treasures and I can’t imagine someone visiting here and not wanting to return. The old city is closed to automobile traffic though the occasional motorbike manages to get through and there are automobiles in some areas, though the narrow streets and cobblestones make the going slow and pedestrians are safe. The main streets and thoroughfares are full of shops and restaurants but the back streets are mostly residences, particularly in the Jewish Quarter where life goes on as if nothing is going on a few blocks away where giant cruise ships unload their passengers for a day of shopping and sightseeing.

The walls of the city were a work in progress for the 200 years the Knights ruled the island. Severely damaged in the first siege they were rebuilt bigger and stronger by Grande Master d’Aubusson after the siege of 1480. The walls are 12 meters thick and the moat more than 21 meters wide. The length of the walls is about four kilometers and each section was defended by one of the Langues or tongues which corresponded to the languages spoken where the particular group of knights came from. The Langues were England, Germany, France, Auvergne, Provence, Italy, Castille-Aragon. The leader of each tongue reported to the Grande Master. The entire area outside the walls is a green park of shade trees and flowers and the moats now have green grass and paths through them instead of water. A couple times a week there is a tour of the city walls and fortifications. But leaving through any of the gates and walking around the old city will give you an idea of just how impressive and formidable it was to the Turkish soldiers trying to take it.

There are two ways to approach exploring the old city. You can wander around aimlessly and stumble upon its treasures and figure out what you saw later or you can invest in a map. Having done the first I recommend the second. Much of the stuff I saw I had to figure out what it was by finding it on a map and reading about it long after I had left the island. There are a couple hotels in the old city though getting a taxi to take you to the door is difficult because of the narrow streets. There are a number of good restaurants and more than enough fast-food places.

One of the 7 wonders of the world, the bronze statue built by Chares of Lindos called the Colossus to commemorate the Rhodian triumph after the siege of Dimitrious the Besieger in 305, using the money they made by selling the siege equipment he left behind to pay for the material and labor which took 12 years to complete. Though the most popular image of the 31 meter tall statue is straddled across the entrance of the harbor with the ships passing beneath it, it is more probable that it stood on dry land somewhere close to where the Grande Master Palace is now. Regardless of where it stood, it did not stand there long because 66 years after it was built it fell in the earthquake of 266 BC. Fearing it was cursed they never rebuilt it but the statue lay where it fell for eight centuries. When the Arabs captured Rhodes in 653 AD they sold it to a Jewish merchant who they say needed 900 camels to take it away. But for those of us who missed it there are plans to rebuild it so stay tuned.

The New Town is not all that new. When the Greeks who did not leave Rhodes with the Knights in 1522 were kicked out of the old city and its protective walls they created new neighborhoods in the south called Marasia. They were joined by people who came from other islands and countries who settled in the northern coast of the island. This was called Neohori, or New Town. In the New Town you will feel like you are in a real modern city instead of a walled medieval fortress. Much of it was built by the Italians when they took it from the disintegrating Ottoman empire. There are stores, traffic lights,mansions, hotels that look like apartment buildings and plenty of cars and motorbikes. It is also remarkably clean and well-cared for, much more so than some other Greek cities.

The New Market near the harbor is a large 7-sided building with an outdoor central courtyard where the old fish market was located in the giant gazebo with the fish decorations. The front of the market has the fancy cafes which all seem to have the same identical strawberry sweets and pastries and waiters smile at you and try to herd you into the comfortable chairs. There are a variety of shops on the inside and the outside of the building including an excellent gourmet deli next to the fine traditional ouzerie Indigo (see food) along with a dozen or so grill restaurants, all with whole chickens and cuts of lamb and pork turning on rotisseries day and night. Between the New Market and the entrance of the Old City is a shaded park area where street venders sell sponges, shells, beads and jewelry and a line of painters wait to offer their services doing caricatures of the tourists who pass between the two towns.

Across the street from the New Market is the harbor called Mandraki distinguished from the outer harbor by the 3 windmills and the fortifications at the end of the dock. The 15th century Tower of Saint Nicholas at the end of the pier in the Mandraki harbor was the key to the defense of the city and in both the first unsuccessful seige of 1480 and the second and final seige of 1522-23 was pounded into rubble in some of the most ferocious battles in the defense of the city. The harbor of Mandraki was actually the ancient harbor. The three windmills that still stand on the breakwater that leads to the tower are actually all that remain of a line of 14 medieval windmills which were used to ground wheat. The two deer, one male and the other female which stand on pillars at the entrance of the harbor were built by the Italians and symbolize the actual deer they brought to Rhodes to rid the island of snakes. You can see the decendents of these deer in Rodini Park, in the southern part of the city, a ravine with running water, peacocks, trails, and fauna.

Much of the new city was built by Mussolini and there are a large number of Art-Deco buildings mixed in with modern apartment buildings and neo-classic architecture. Some of the most impressive buildings are the National Theater, the Courts, the City Hall and the Governor’s Palace, all located in the same area beyond Elefterias Square, on the western side of the Mandraki harbor. Some of the buildings the Italians left are also in the old city as well and it is said that Mussolini laid the foundation for tourism in Rhodes.

The Church of the Annunciation was originally a Catholic Cathedral, built in the same style as the church of the Knights of St John, opposite the Grand Master’s Palace in the old city. Across the broad avenue is the Mourad Reis Mosque and in a small Turkish Cemetery which surrounds it is the house where Laurence Durrell lived and wrote from 1945 to 1947. If you are wondering if this was the house where he wrote the Alexandria Quartet while Melissa’s child played happily in the sea, I would have to say, probably not, though it was tempting to believe it since I was in fact reading Justine at the time of my visit and until I saw the plaque (pointed out to me by Michalis Axarlis) I did not know that Durrell had ever lived in Rhodes.

If you continue along the coast you come to the popular town beach and the Aquarium where the Aegean meets the Mediterranean that is the only one of its kind in Greece and worth a visit to see the sea turtles, moray eels and many of the fish they serve ion the restaurants, alive and happily swimming. If you go behind the Aquarium and swim at the point you will be swimming in two seas. The Aegean is usually windy and has waves and in fact that area and up the coastal road the air can be several degrees cooler than the air to the east. I did not swim here because I was afraid of being swept by the Aegean into the Mediterannean and all the way to Turkey. Many of the most popular hotels are here on the med side including the Hotel Mediterannean where we stayed. This photo was taken from our balcony. Let me mention that this must be the cleanest town beach and one of the most enjoyable places to swim (and people-watch) anywhere in Greece.

Overlooking the city of Rhodes is the ancient Acropolis, a restored stadium from the second century, a small restored ampitheatre and a temple to Apollo on a mountain named Monte Smith. It’s actually the ancient Hellenistic city of Rhodes but the mountain was named for Sir Sydney Smith whose job was to sit on the mountain watching for Napoleon’s fleet in 1802. (“Just sit here for a year and we’ll name this mountain after you.” they told him) You can take the number 5 bus or walk here though we came up with Nick as part of our city tour. The view of the new city and the Aegean coast is spectacular and the line of small houses along the coast were actually built for Turkish (or Muslim Greek) refugees from Crete and is called Kritika.

Staying in the new town is really the most convenient place to be. The old town is a twenty minute walk from just about anywhere and the broad avenues and tree lined streets combined with the breeze from the Aegean keep the area cooler in the summer. In fact some nights the coastal road can be like walking in a wind tunnel which is why many of the restaurants there are enclosed by walls or glass. If you are renting a car to see the island it is easier to get in and out of town and to find a place to park than in the old town. If you are taking a taxi to the port or the airport they are much happier picking you up or dropping you off in the new town too. And really, the beaches in the New Town make it unnecessary to go anywhere else if that is all you want to do.