The Old Town of Rhodes

The Old City of Rhodes with a 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.

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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 seige that exhausted both defenders and beseigers 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 commerical 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 Archological 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.

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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 Dule 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 Dodecanesos 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 birdseye view of the city (see top photo) 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 Disastor 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.

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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 Hammam 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 Herritage 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, particlarly 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 seige they were rebuilt bigger and stronger by Grande Master d'Aubusson after the seige 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.

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The Collossus of Rhodes

One of the 7 wonders of the world, the bronze statue built by Chares of Lindos called the Collosus to commemorate the Rhodian triumph after the siege of Dimitrious the Beseiger 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.