Rhodes in October
Summer somehow quickly ended, there was not enough heat and sun at work, and we decided to extend the summer for ourselves.
Lindos Acropolis
For this, we chose the Greek island of Rhodes, which we have been eyeing for a long time. Rhodes has 300 sunny days a year, so getting into bad weather is quite difficult.
Lindos Acropolis
I have confessed I love Greece more than once. This is a country created for a peaceful, relaxing holiday. This is the country we have been to the most times. This is a country, having rested in which for a long time you feel the charge of rest. The Greeks are very friendly, unhurried, friendly, and they also have amazing cuisine!
Lindos
For our holiday, we chose the village of Faliraki.
Evening Faliraki
This is the party heart of Rhodes.
Faliraki embankment in the evening
There are many hotels, shops, nightclubs, even a casino.
Lovers Fountain
Evening life in the village boils, everything sparkles with lights.
Available for sale: )
A sort of local Las Vegas.
Strip club in Faliraki
So, we decided, it won't be boring at the end of the season.
Such a Colossus in Faliraki
Due to the pandemic, entry into Greece is allowed with a vaccination passport or with a PCR test. Be sure to fill out a questionnaire on travel. gov. gr. Control is entrusted to the airlines, so at the Rhodes airport upon arrival no one looked at either the vaccination passport or the questionnaire. Looking ahead, I’ll say that when leaving the island, at the check-in desk, they always looked at the vaccination passport, and those who didn’t have one were forced to install the Vdoma application, without which they wouldn’t issue a boarding pass.
The street of bars in Faliraki
We came across a modest hotel, but the choice of accommodation in Rhodes is huge: from modest apartments to 5* hotels.
The hotel has a buffet. Everything was collected by ourselves. There were sanitizers and packs of disposable gloves all over the restaurant. At first, the hotel was more populated by Poles, and they entered the restaurant wearing masks, and then the Russians arrived and away we go… For some, apparently, the pandemic has already ended. None of the staff made comments, and did not control the behavior of the guests in the restaurant. Perhaps the end of the season relaxed everyone. But precisely because of these nuances and the complete absence of free Wi-Fi, I will not advertise the hotel.
Church of St. Nektarios in the village of Faliraki
The island is named after the nymph Rhodes, beloved of the god Helios.
But I will not try to retell the history of ancient Greece.
I'll tell you a little about the objects that we visited.
Even at home, we outlined a “mandatory program” of visiting sights. Developed the logistics of travel to them. But everything turned out to be even easier. We were able to see almost everything in one tour.
Due to the pandemic, excursions are not allowed to be taken in large buses, but only in minibuses or even minivans for 6 people. Excursions have become more expensive, but they have combined several excursions.
We took only a sightseeing tour of Rhodes from a tour operator, and in one day we saw the most famous sights of the island.
The sightseeing tour included such objects: the snow-white city of Lindos with a visit to the Acropolis, "Kiss of the Two Seas", lunch and tasting of local cheese and wine (where would it be without it! ), The Seven Springs Valley and two viewing platforms. Butterfly Valley was supposed to also enter, but due to summer fires it was badly damaged and, at the moment, there are almost no butterflies in it.
What do people know about Rhodes when they first come there? The fact that the Colossus of Rhodes stood there and the fact that the Knights Hospitallers were there for some time.
We started our acquaintance with the island from the snow-white town of Lindos, which is located on the site of the ancient city of Linda.
View of Lindos from the Acropolis
Lind was an important crossroads for sea routes. The world's first code of maritime law, the famous Rhodes maritime law, was drawn up here.
Streets of Lindos
The town itself is very pretty, with old, narrow, winding streets, it reminded us very much of the towns on the island Santorini where we spent two weeks in 2018.
Streets of Lindos
At the top of a high mountain stands the fortress of Lindos, built by the Ioannites (the same Knights Hospitaller).
Lindos Acropolis
The columns of the ancient Acropolis rise above the powerful fortress walls, the second largest and most important after the Athenian one.
Lindos Acropolis
Climbing the mountain is possible only on foot or on local donkeys.
From the height of the Acropolis, you can enjoy a great view of the bay of St. Paul in the shape of a heart.
St. Paul's Bay
Legend says that the ship on which St. Paul sailed to Jerusalem was caught in a storm off the coast of the island of Rhodes, and was carried to the rocks. The apostle turned to God with a request for help, and the nearest rocks parted in front of the ship, forming a small passage and passing it into a tiny harbor, protected from waves and wind on all sides, which had previously been a lake and had no outlet to the sea. It was from this place that the Apostle Paul began his journey as a preacher on the island of Rhodes. A small chapel was built at the place where the saint was saved. The natural beauty of this bay is now a place of tourist pilgrimage and wedding photo shoots.
Entrance to the Acropolis of Lindos now costs 12 euros per person, and you also need to present a vaccination certificate or a fresh PCR test.
View of Prasonisi from the observation deck
The next object of the tour is Prasonisi, or "Kiss of the Two Seas". Two seas - the Mediterranean and the Aegean - wash the island of Rhodes. At its northern end near the city of Rhodes, the effect of the merger is practically invisible, but at the southern end you can enjoy this unusual phenomenon. Already approaching this place, from the observation deck, the raging Aegean Sea (on the right) and the quiet Mediterranean (on the left) are clearly visible.
Rough Aegean Sea on Prasonisi
In the Aegean, kiters rush, and in the Mediterranean, surfers.
Mediterranean Sea on Prasonisi
The scythe that separates them doesn't always show up. There were years when it was not visible, but now it is 100 meters wide.
A spit where you can walk on Prasonisi
The wind whistles there continuously, just like a hurricane, carrying and breaking prickly sand about you. Therefore, it is unpleasant to stay in this place for a long time. But it is definitely worth visiting, looking at this natural wonder, and also swimming in two seas.
In this place two seas merge into one
There are places for sunbathing and swimming there, but we didn’t see anyone who wanted to sunbathe in such a wind.
The history of Rhodes is unusually rich. There is in it a long period of foundation on the island of the Knights of St. John and the reign of the Grand Masters.
The Johnites appeared on Rhodes in 1319.
The Military Spiritual Knightly Order of St. John, even before the start of the Crusades, built a monastery and a hospital in Jerusalem for the treatment of pilgrims who traveled from Western Europe to the Holy Land - Palestine - to worship the Holy Sepulcher. Since initially the main goal of the brotherhood, and later the Order, was the construction of hospitals, members of the Order were called hospitallers.
On Rhodes, the Hospitallers were forced to become a more militarized force, fighting constantly, mainly against North African pirates, but they also fought off Egyptian and Ottoman sultans. In battles with Muslims, the order demonstrated its distinctive features - its knights were dressed in black tunics with white crosses.
Exhibits of the Masters' Palace
The Hospitallers created a powerful navy, and became such real sailors that over the next centuries, first in Rhodes, and then in Malta, they did not know defeat at sea.
On Rhodes, in Halicarnassus (now Turkish Bodrum, which is only 16 km across the strait) and on the neighboring islands, numerous castles were erected for protection by them, the garrisons of which successfully repelled enemy landings. One of these castles - Monolithos - we were able to see as part of a sightseeing tour.
The ruins of Monolithos Castle
There are no scheduled buses to the castle, you can only get there as part of an excursion or by car.
Tasting
After visiting the tasting (by the way, I tried orange jam with red pepper for the first time there, which I really liked for its unusual taste) and having a delicious lunch, our excursion group moved further along the entire western coast of Rhodes.
Small kebabs in Greece are called souvlaki
We enjoyed beautiful views of the raging Aegean Sea, examined the island in the form of a petrified ship.
Ship Island
The legend says that the pirates, who caused a lot of problems to Rhodes, loaded the ship with loot so much that, having moved a little from the coast, they could not move further, and... turned to stone.
Valley of 7 sources
The last stop on our tour was a visit to the Valley of the Seven Springs.
Valley of 7 sources
A powerful spring comes to the surface in 7 places at once, the flow from it flows into the Lutanis River, which goes into a concrete tunnel built in the 1930s, and then into the reservoir.
This is the only freshwater reservoir in Rhodes used for irrigation. True, we did not find a powerful spring: it was a very hot summer in Rhodes, but of course, we walked along the 168-meter dark tunnel, for which all tourists go to this place.
Tunnel in the Valley of 7 Springs
The passage through it is not illuminated, only halfway there is a ventilation shaft that has broken through the thickness of the earth by 13 m. This is the only source of daylight.
Light in the tunnel
Only one person can go through the tunnel, it is very narrow there. The water is cold, first ankle-deep, then above the knees, but everyone goes! After all, there is already a belief that a man, having passed, will get rid of seven sins, and a woman will become seven years younger. The guide said that some ladies managed to run three times. True, there were no such people in our group.
All of the above sightseeing sites can also be reached by public transport. Buses run quite well, but, of course, you will spend more time, and the journey is quite expensive.
After resting for a day, we went to see the capital of the island - the city of Rhodes.
This is how the hospitals were thoroughly equipped on Rhodes
The fortress is its main attraction.
Actually, behind the medieval walls there is still a functioning Old Town, where life is in full swing without stopping.
Square inside the Old Town
Most of it consists of narrow medieval streets, the houses of which are still inhabited by local residents.
Very medieval street
For us, perhaps, this was the biggest discovery.
People still live here
We thought that the fortress was an open-air museum, but it turns out that people live inside, cafes, restaurants, shops and street shops work.
Square in the Old Town
At one time, the fortress of Rhodes was considered impregnable, in the XIV-XV centuries it was the largest and most powerful fortress in Europe, and withstood the attacks of Muslims for 213 years.
Thanks to the impregnability of the fortress, Rhodes fell 70 years later than Constantinople.
Three lines of defense
The Knights of St. John brought a lot of trouble, raiding the coast of Asia Minor and Egypt, sinking or capturing the ships of Muslim states. For two centuries, Rhodes has been a thorn in the body of the Muslim East.
Old Town
The end of the reign of the knights fell on 1522. It was in this year that the 100.000-strong army of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent again laid siege to Rhodes, the fortress of which was defended by a garrison of only 7.000 people. After a six-month siege, the knights no longer had the strength and ability to defend the fortress. But the Turks, who learned about this from the betrayer of the Order of the Great Chancellor, in the conditions of the already come winter, having suffered huge losses during numerous assaults, did not have the strength to continue the siege. During the negotiations, an agreement was reached on the honorable surrender of the fortress. The Turks released everyone who wished to leave the fortress, with banners, weapons and cannons, and provided ships to sail from the island. The knights and those of the inhabitants of Rhodes who wished to leave the island sailed first to Sicily and then to Malta. So the Rhodes knights turned into the Maltese. But that's another story.
A walk along the moat
Before entering the old city, we went around it from the outside along the moat. The length of the walls around the perimeter is about four kilometers, and the moat itself has now been turned into a well-groomed park.
The moat, which has now been turned into a park in Rhodes
But it is from there that you can see these powerful walls, understand how the fortress was built and why it was so difficult to capture it.
One of the gates to the Old City
The fortress has 11 gates around its perimeter. To get to the Street of the Knights, it is better to enter through the gate from the side of the Mandraki harbor.
Gate from the harbor
Entering the fortress through this gate, you immediately come to the Archaeological Museum, in the building of which the General Hospital was located in the knightly era.
Entrance to the Archaeological Museum
Entrance to the museum costs 6 euros, and a complex ticket with a visit to the Palace of the Magisters, two exhibitions and a church costs 10 euros (it is valid for three days).
Mosaics in the Archaeological Museum
It is mandatory to present a certificate of vaccination or a fresh test.
Former hospital ward of the Hospital
We started our visit from the museum and did not regret it for a minute.
Inner courtyard of the Archaeological Museum
It exhibits many interesting archaeological finds made on the territory of both the city of Rhodes and the entire island.
Archaeological Museum
Pottery in the Archaeological Museum
From the Archaeological Museum we went to the Street of the Knights.
Street of Knights
On the Street of the Knights there were not barracks, but rather, clubs of the compatriots that were part of the Order. Now we saw the French Embassy on it.
Church of the Holy Trinity on Knights Street
Along the Street of the Knights we come to the main building - the Palace of the Magisters.
Masters' Palace
The palace was built back in the 14th century, and since that time it has seen 19 masters, whose difference from kings was that their power was not inherited. The Grand Masters, together with their order, controlled the entire Mediterranean in their heyday. Therefore, their residence was a fortress, which was supposed to emphasize their strength and influence.
Inner courtyard of the Masters' Palace
During the Turkish rule, the palace was a prison.
As a result of several earthquakes, as well as an explosion of gunpowder in a nearby building, the palace was badly damaged. The Italians restored it (the island passed to them in the 20s of the twentieth century) only by 1940.
Stairway in the Masters' Palace
It is worth noting that the restorers did their best - the Palace looks quite medieval, not only externally, but also inside.
Halls of the Masters' Palace
Its interior halls with stone walls, mosaics on the floor (original mosaic, brought from the island of Kos), high ceilings and huge fireplaces convey the real atmosphere of the Middle Ages.
Mosaics in the Masters' Palace
The peculiar acoustics, in which every rustle is heard, and steps are heard with a booming sound, gives this place a special mystery.
Fireplaces
Halls of the Masters' Palace
And the expositions of the halls immerse visitors in the era of the hospitallers.
Prayer chairs
After inspecting the Masters' Palace, we went to the port of Mandraki. A huge liner at that time moored there!
Liner in the port of Mandraki
We walked along the beautiful and noisy embankment to the place where the Colossus of Rhodes stood at the entrance to the harbor.
So beautifully lined with pebble panels on the waterfront of Rhodes
On the way we see a beautiful Italian-style basilica. This is the Cathedral of Rhodes. Unfortunately, it is currently under renovation.
Rhodes Cathedral
The Colossus of Rhodes was one of the seven wonders of the world, but, unfortunately, it has not survived to this day. A bronze figure 36 meters high towered over the city for more than 60 years, and then was destroyed during an earthquake in 226 BC. It is believed that he looked like this...
The Greeks restored the statue of the Colossus twice, and each time it collapsed during earthquakes. Now, they say, a new restoration project is ready. Well, let's wait and see!
Columns with deer
And at the entrance to the harbor there are now two columns with figures of deer: a male and a female. These animals are considered symbols of modern Rhodes. They were erected during the years of Italian rule, in the first half of the twentieth century.
Columns with deer
According to legend, deer became the symbol of Rhodes after they saved the island from an invasion of poisonous vipers. The animals crushed them with their hooves.
And one more item of our "cultural" program remained unfulfilled - a trip to Anthony Queen Bay.
Anthony Quinn Bay
You can get there by bus from our village, but you can also walk there. We chose to hike. It's only about forty minutes to go.
Let's go in the morning to get into the bay before it fills up with tourists.
Anthony Quinn Bay
And they did not lose! The bay is small, very picturesque, protected by two capes, it has crystal clear water and absolutely no waves.
Anthony Quinn Bay
In 1964, Anthony Quinn (an actor with Latin American roots) was filming in Greece, in Rhodes, in the famous film Zorba the Greek.
He portrayed the Greek so talentedly that he continued to play the role of the Greeks further in all Hollywood films. And the Greek government gave him this bay (according to another version, he bought it). But in any case, it does not matter which of these versions is correct, because already in 1984, this piece of paradise became the property of the Greek state. And the bay still bears the well-known name - Anthony Queen Bay.
Anthony Quinn Bay
It was for the film Zorba the Greek that the composer Nikos Theodorakis came up with a melody, and the Sirtaki dance was created, which did not exist before.
The fact is that Anthony was injured on the set and could not bounce in the dance, but dragged his leg. But through the pain he continued to dance. This is how a new dance turned out, with an unusual sliding step.
After the success of the film, which won three Oscars, the Sirtaki dance became world famous and has since become associated with Greece.
There is another bay near Anthony Queen Bay - LadikO. It is less known, but also picturesque and popular with tourists. The sea there is clear and amazing in color!
Ladiko Bay
This is the end of our vacation. Why does it always end so quickly?
Faliraki village beach
