It was time for a change of pace and our next port was Rhodes, a Greek island. Another overnight trip and waking up to a new location, it’s an amazing experience one that everyone should do in their life time at least once.
History
Rhodes historically goes way back, before the time of Christ. During the 7th century BC, the island developed as a trading port. Over that time to the AD period, three city states of Ialyssos, Lindos and Kaminos united to from the city of Rhodes the capital. They hired a leading architect to design the city. Rhodes remained independent until 42 BC, Cassius plundered Rhodes for backing his rivals.
Between the first century and now some significant things have have occurred:
269AD – Rhodes was plundered by the Goths
297AD – the Byzantine empire took control of the island. Crusaders, Ottoman Turks and Italians ruled over the Island. It fell briefly to Venetian influence, followed by the Byzantine and Genovese.
1309 – the Knights of the Order of St John took the city from the Genovese, it began to move into the modern era.
1312 – the Knights inherited the immense wealth of the Templars and used it to fortify the city. 1912 – the Italians took over Rhodes from the Ottoman Empire 1939-45 – Germany took control of the island from the Italians Post 1945 – Greece took control of Rhodes
What you see in Rhodes
The old city is a great fortress. Inside you can find,
- The Hospital of Knights
- The Palace of the Knights of St. John
- The Mosque of Suleyman
- The Byzantine Church of Panagia
- The Byzantine Church of St Panteleimon
- The Temple of Aphrodite
- Square of the Jewish Martyrs
- Rhodes Aquarium
However did we see any of these? Kind of.
So what did we see and do?
We focused on a walk around a little bit of the new city and a walk through the old city, then went shopping!
We headed down to the entrance of the harbour and the fort of St Nicholas. It was under restoration but very pretty, a great outlook to the harbour. Then it was off for Coffee.
Oh, Oh, something broke on the Camera. After reaching for my pocket to pull out my trusty Lumix DMC-FH2 Camera, only 15 months old, I notice the trigger button on the camera missing. I put my hand back in my pocket to feel all these bits and pieces like a trigger button, ring and spring; this is not good.
At coffee, I emptied my pocket and found the plastic ring securing the trigger button had broken. Not happy. It’s a good thing I have spare camera in the Video camera, the iPhone 5 and Annette’s Samsung camera she borrowed.
The cafes here in Rhodes cater well for patrons by offering free wifi. Our cafe offered this however the Coffee and Baklava was the highlight. The cafe was founded in 1940, it probably had seen some interesting conversations occur in that spot since that time.
Now it was shopping time. Having starting our walk from the other end of the city, we moved against the flow of the normal tourist traffic which was great.
So now it was shopping time, souvenirs, belts, Christmas presents, etc. The prices are very reasonable.
We had lunch at a great upstairs restaurant called Lindos Garden, you have to be careful not to miss it as its just an arch in a wall, however great Greek food.
More shopping. We lost Karen and Annette for a while and found them at Missikou Chrisoula Variety Jewellery shop run by an Australian girl, Greek background. Tsabika works here for the summer period and then heads back to Australia to work on her Jewellery and run a shop at the Paddington Markets in Sydney. That’s a picture of them in Gallery.
So that was Rhodes, by the way, it’s easy to get lost in the old city, but it’s also easy to follow the traffic of tourists to get out.
Rhodes, definitely a must on trip in the Mediterranean.
Chris and Annette
