Rhodes

Rhodes is a bigger island than Patmos, with a number of villages and towns. We started in Rhodes Town, Old Town, to be specific. It is a walled city that retains traces of settlements from ancient times up to the present, with 2500 years of architecture visible.

The fortification is massive and includes a 12-meter thick wall, a moat, and an outer wall: A testament to the years of conflict this place has seen. We could see Turkey from Rhodes.

An Italian palace in the old town is filled with mosaics taken from the near-by island of Kos. Here, you meet the gaze of a Gorgon. Are you turned to stone?

One of the medieval alleys that constitute the bulk of passageways in the old town. It was hard to believe that people actually lived modern lives here, but off the main tourist strip we could peek in windows and see families eating together, watching TV, and somehow managing to be normal. Note the scooters, a preferred mode of transport in Greece and a threat to gawking pedestrians like us.

Mosques in town attest to periods of Turkish rule.

We took a day trip to the village of Lindos. It was the most important Ancient Greek site on Rhodes. The acropolis--a generic term for "high city"--had magnificent views but had been picked clean by archaeologists in the early 1900s. Since the Ottomans were in control and the archaelogists were Danish, the artifacts from Lindos are now mainly in Istanbul and Copenhagen.
Our hotel in old town was very pretty.


On more than one island we saw street performers in some crazy native american costumes, mixing South American pan flutes with North American Plains Indian garb. The tourists ate it up! (The stereotype of the sunburnt Northern European on a Greek beach holiday is not far from the truth; some of the islands had a tacky Florida vibe in parts.)