Greece 2010, Fortresses, Palaces, Knights and Ramadan

Early next morning we heard the self opinionated bankers leaving for the next leg of the journey to Kos and we were pleased that they had gone. For our last full day in Rhodes we had saved the visit to the Palace of the Grand Masters as we anticipated that this might be one of the highlights so after a second excellent breakfast on the terrace prepared by Sofia we set off again towards the heart of the old medieval city and the street of the Knights and at the top the Palace itself.

From the outside it looks impressive but it isn’t the original Palace of course because that was destroyed in an explosion in the nineteenth century. The blast levelled it (and pretty much everything else adjacent to it) to the ground and it was later rebuilt by the Italians who didn’t concern themselves too greatly with issues of historical accuracy. They thought it might make a good Palace for the Italian King to come and stay but as it happened he never visited Rhodes or stayed at the place. Just as in Lindos and the bodged reconstruction of the Acropolis they again used inappropriate building materials, which means almost constant repair work and today the huge main gate was entirely surrounded by scaffolding.

We paid the entrance fee of €6 each and competed with several organized tour groups as we went through the courtyard and into the succession of rooms and exhibits. It was quite interesting but we didn’t rate it as highly as the Archaeological Museum that we had visited the previous day and after an hour we had seen most of what there was to see and we were back out in the sunshine.

The old town was busy today which was no real surprise because Sofia had told us at breakfast that there were seven cruise ships due to stop by and visit today so we kept away from the crowded main squares and shopping streets and once again dropped into the back streets of the Turkish quarter and walked right through to one of the southern gates of the city. Temporarily leaving the old town we walked for a few hundred metres on the outer side of the walls through the new town. It was busy, grubby and dirty and we were glad when we reached the next gate and were able to return to the quieter streets of the old Jewish quarter. Quieter because although this used to be a thriving Jewish area they were all expelled during the Nazi occupation late in the Second-World-War and the Jewish community have never returned.

After a refreshing Mythos at the street corner bar we returned to the Sofia Pension for the afternoon and spent the afternoon relaxing on the terrace with a couple of beers.

During the three days we had tried to capture pictures of the Street of Knights at various times and in different lights so in the early evening we walked there once more and stayed there until the sun had completely disappeared in the west and the subdued street lights brought a different atmosphere to the place with a waxy glow reflecting off the pitted stonework of the walls.

When it was no longer possible to take pictures we walked back through the busy streets ignoring the waiters as we went and made for the Jewish quarter once more where we planned to eat at Kostas’ Restaurant which was one of Sofia’s recommendations. It wasn’t especially late but it was really busy already and we couldn’t get a table in the main dining room so had to sit in the hallway instead. It was so busy that the service wasn’t that good and although the food excellent I think on reflection we could have found somewhere better for our final meal in Rhodes.

To get back to our room we had to go through the Turkish quarter and past a Mosque where a service had clearly just finished. I took a look inside at the brightly coloured carpets and wall hangings but I didn’t think it was appropriate to go through the door. There were lots of men outside and one of them told me that this was an important night for Muslims because this was the last day of Ramadan. Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar and is the month of fasting in which Muslims refrain from eating, drinking and sexual relations during the hours of daylight. Fasting is intended to teach Muslims about patience, humility, and spirituality. It is a time for Muslims to fast for the sake of God and to offer more prayer than usual. During Ramadan, Muslims ask forgiveness for past sins, pray for guidance and help in refraining from everyday evils, and try to purify themselves through self-restraint and good deeds. They all seemed a bit excited tonight and I suspect they were all going on to a party.

Greece 2010, Lindos to Rhodes

There was no particular rush to leave Lindos and we planned to catch the eleven o’clock bus to the city and this gave us plenty of time to have breakfast on the terrace and then settle up. We didn’t anticipate the problem however with the credit card payment machine which eventually managed to charge me three times and required the owner to attend from somewhere in the village to straighten matters out, a process which used up most of the spare time that we had factored in.

It took an hour and ten minutes to get back to Rhodes using for most of the journey the same road that we had taken to drive to Lindos three days earlier but on this occasion thankfully bypassing Falaraki and Kalathea and arriving at just about lunch time. From the bus stop we walked through noisy Ippokratous Square and back to the little taverna where we had had lunch on the first day for a drink, a short rest and some map interpretation. It turned out that the Sofia Pension wasn’t that far away and after our drink we found it easily within ten minutes.

Our accommodation in Rhodes turned out to be first class, functional and unexciting from the outside but with a well furnished room and a delightful walled garden and sun terrace inside. It was situated inside the old town walls barely a hundred metres from the boisterous main shopping street of Socrates and busy Ippokratous Square but was surprisingly quiet set in a labyrinth of narrow alleys and shady lanes and squeezed in between the old Turkish quarter with its abandoned Mosques and erect minarets piercing the perfect blue sky on the one side and the run down old Jewish quarter on the other. The friendly owner showed us to a nice traditional room with good air conditioning and outside a nice shady terrace with tumbling vines, the aroma of mimosa and jasmine and randomly placed pots of vibrant geraniums.

The island of Rhodes is probably one of the most fascinating of all Greek islands. It has been inhabited for six thousand years and due to its unique geographical position on the major Mediterranean Sea trade routes is at a crossroads between Europe, the Middle East, and Africa and this has given the city and the island many different identities, cultures, architectures, and languages over its long history. In the afternoon we went for a stroll through the back streets of the old town; cobbled, narrow, twisting and moody with long shadows thrown down by the tall stone buildings next to narrow looping lanes and intriguing alleyways. It was like being transported back six hundred years and it was almost possible to imagine the medieval knights swaggering, bullying and clanking through the streets. In this quieter part of the old town there were shops and tavernas but also artisans houses and small workshops next to people’s houses where whole families seemed to be living in a single room and if this wasn’t cramped enough then sometimes even shared with a motorbike or scooter as well.

Eventually we left the back streets and emerged on Socrates Street where shops were doing brisk trade selling to the rich people from the cruise ships. At a shop selling silks and fabrics Kim stopped to take a picture and was immediately chastised by the owner for not asking permission. He demanded €10, she laughed and he chased away down the street in a whirlwind of hand gestures and chattering chastisements.

Tired of the continuous uninvited attention of the traders and the waiters trying to generate business we made our way back into the warren of back streets and through the Turkish Quarter which not surprisingly all felt a bit eastern and oriental with shops selling carpets, hookahs and Turkish coffee. We walked through arches and buttresses, past turrets and balconies and occasionally a little oasis of green amongst the dusty streets and then interesting narrow roads and every one with a surprise around each crooked turn.

In the late afternoon we walked to the top of the town and climbed to the top of the restored clock tower next to Sulliman’s Mosque for some good views of the town and the harbour. There was an entrance charge of €5 but that turned out to be good value because the price included a drink in the roof top bar terrace where we sat and enjoyed the views.

The rest of the day was spent on the terrace and as evening approached we slipped again into the back streets behind the hotel and had an unhurried evening meal in a pleasant little restaurant close by. I must have had too much wine because on the way back to the room I showed unusual amounts of interest in some cheap glass necklaces and Kim took advantage of this momentary slip up on my part and spent some time choosing and then purchasing three when she didn’t really need any.

Greece 2010, Two Almost Similar Days in Lindos

The next day after breakfast we took the advice of our neighbours and took the bus to Pefkas which turned out to be an unremarkable little place but as promised it did have a very nice beach. There were a few sun beds and umbrellas at €8 a time but also plenty of space left over for blanket people like us. The sea was nice and deeper than Lindos so swimming was better and if I had had room in my luggage for a snorkel I am certain there would have been plenty of fish to watch.

It was a nice spot with a cool breeze and the sound of gentle lapping waves but, as I have explained before, we are not really beach people and two hours is generally more than enough. We have never owned up to this to each other but I suspect we are both secretly hoping that the other one will be the first to say the magic words ‘shall we pack up then and go and have a drink?’ and certainly there has never really been any debate on this matter that I can ever remember. And so it was today and as boredom levels began to rise we packed up and strolled back to the bus stop stopping on the way in the centre for a Mythos.

Like most places on Rhodes, and indeed Lindos, there were some restaurants and tavernas and they all had unnecessary pictures of the food on display boards outside. I really don’t like that and I don’t see the point of it either. Surely most people know what a chicken kebab looks like and if they want to see a picture of a moussaka they can see that every week in Tesco or Morrisons? And what’s more the pictures don’t generally look like what you are likely to get anyway so I find it all a bit distasteful and common. But then again Rhodes is an airport island and there were quite a lot of football shirts and tattoo people wandering about and they probably welcomed this sort of assistance with making dining selections.

The amount of tattoos on display was incredible and almost as many women as men with decorated bodies proudly showing them off. Personally I cannot understand why anyone, unless they are a Maori, would want to disfigure themselves in this way but here on Rhodes it seemed as though they were almost in the majority.

We caught the ten past two bus back to Lindos and once back at the Chrysa Studios Kim declared it too hot to do anything except enjoy the air conditioned room so I sat on the terrace for a while and then worried that I might be missing something in the village went for a walk to find some streets that we might have overlooked so far.

As I walked around the corkscrew lanes and became confused in the maze of alleys I found myself at the beginning of the path to the Acropolis so although we were planning to visit tomorrow, just out of curiosity I walked to the top to see how much it was going to cost. It was quite a climb and the well worn path was slippery and precipitous but at least I had had a practice ahead of the next day.

On the next day we had slipped completely into routine and we did the same things over again. First we had breakfast on the terrace and because we had liked the beach at Pefkas in preference to Lindos we caught the bus there for a second time. Two hours on the beach, a drink at the same bar and the ten past two bus back to Lindos.

For the afternoon we did plan something different and the visit to the Acropolis. We had waited until Sunday because sometimes museums and archaeological sites are free on Sunday so we thought it was worth the wait until the last day in Lindos. When the time came to tackle the steps and the walk Kim declared herself too hot and tired so I had to go alone and when I got there was disappointed to find that you do have to pay on a Sunday after all.

The walk and the climb to the entrance to the site actually turned out to be the easy bit because once inside there was an energy sapping ascent up a steep stone staircase with a sheer drop on each side to the entrance to the medieval fortress which was built by the Knight’s of Saint John in the fourteenth century to defend the island against the Ottoman Turks.

There were some good views from the top as I walked first through the foundations and the towers of the castle and the Byzantine church and then to the very top and the ancient Acropolis itself, the DoricTemple of Athena Lindia, the Propylaea of the Sanctuary, a huge staircase and a Hellenistic Stoa and finally the remains of a Roman Temple. Although hundreds of people visit this place every day four o’clock on a Sunday afternoon turned out to be a very good time to go indeed because there were no more than a dozen or so people here right now so it was easy to walk around and admire the ruins undisturbed.

They are ruins of course but some of the buildings and columns have been restored and in the twentieth century there was a lot of archeological and restoration work carried out by the Italians when they were in control here between the two world wars. Unfortunately some of the work they carried out wasn’t that good and as well as incorrectly reinterpreting some of the construction they also used poor quality materials and a lot of the reinforced concrete they used has begun to fail leading to even worse damage than they tried to rectify and most of this work is having to be done again at great cost under the supervision of the Greek Ministry of Culture.

It was still very hot and the walk had made me hungry and thirsty so I bought some pizza and beer and went back to the apartment where Kim was just about planning her shopping trip to the silver workshop having taken a couple of days to make up her mind which piece of jewellery she was going to buy.

In the evening we finally broke with routine and instead of Kamariko and the irritating waiter we found an alternative restaurant with a roof top terrace and we enjoyed a lazy meal in a cool breeze without waiter interruption and with free sweet and complimentary ouzo. This was our last night in Lindos, we had enjoyed it but we were ready to move on back to Rhodes town and over Metaxa on the balcony we reflected on our four days and made our plans for the next day.

Greece 2010, Lindos

There was no wind today and it was already hot on the balcony by breakfast time and unfortunately because of yesterday’s little accident there was no umbrella for shade. I walked to the mini-market for provisions and then we enjoyed a Lindian breakfast that we prepared for ourselves and ate on the terrace with its lovely view of the ancient and important village of Lindos. Here history stretches back over three thousand years and Lindos grew to prosperity under the Knights of St. John who built their fortress on the site of the ancient Acropolis. So much of the medieval village has survived that it has been declared a national landmark.

Because of its east coast location, Lindos is the hottest place on Rhodes and even in September by mid morning it was much too hot to sit on the terrace so we set off down the steep uneven steps towards the shady streets of the village and heading for the beach. Once past the steps where we had to watch every move it was a real delight to walk around the narrow streets with their traditional, distinctive, white and black chochlaki pebbled surface because no vehicles other than the odd delivery van are allowed inside. The village felt authentic because little or no changes can be made to the buildings, many of which have survived since the fifteenth century and the architectural style of the village is a mixture of Gothic, Byzantine Greek and middle Eastern influence.

Although there are no vehicles we did have to watch out for the donkeys that every day transport hundreds, probably thousands, of day visitors from the bottom of the village to the steps of the Acropolis and then back down again. I rode on a donkey here in 1997 and it seemed cruel so I vowed I wouldn’t do it again but later at lunchtime Mario explained that there are four hundred donkeys who work for two days and then get a day off and that working is good for them because they live an average twenty-one years which is seven years longer than a donkey that has nothing to do and I have to confess that they did look healthy and well looked after. We didn’t go on one though!

Eventually after a long descent we reached the first small beach which was full of sun loungers and umbrellas for people who stay there all day and no room to put down a towel for people like us who only stay for an hour or so. Not being prepared to pay €8 for the beds we continued to walk towards the main larger beach where there was some space on the stony scruffy bits behind the umbrellas where it was at least possible to make our own arrangements.

We swam in the sea and that was nice but we didn’t really like the beach all that much because it was much too organized for us with regimented rows of sun beds all crammed together in such a way as to make it difficult for cheapskates like us to put our towels down and avoid the charge and let’s face it €8 is quite a lot of money that we calculated would soon add up over a fortnight’s holiday. As well as the sun beds there were pedaloes, canoes, diving instruction and water sports and on balance we preferred the rock on Symi so we didn’t stay too long.

After a cold drink at a busy beach bar we walked back into the village which was bustling now with coach loads of visitors pushing and shoving through the narrow streets. There was a pretty whitewashed church at the bottom of the village which was built by the Knights in the fourteenth century and had some lovely frescoes and decorated floors but as there was an entrance charge and photography was forbidden we made do with admiring it through the door without going inside.

After lunch at Mario’s again we explored the other side of the village where the shops and bars petered out to be replaced with narrow streets of local houses where the smell of fresh moussaka and tide washing powder seeped out from behind the windows and doors. At the far end of the village there was an ancient amphitheatre, almost two thousand five-hundred years old and so adjacent to the modern buildings that it is certain there are more hidden treasures concealed below them which must have archaeologists drooling with anticipation.

Back at the apartment by late afternoon the terrace was much more comfortable now because the sun had swung to the west and was disappearing quickly behind the mountain range backbone of the island and by six o’clock the entire village was in shadow with only the massive outcrop of rock and the Acropolis remaining bathed in early evening sunshine. It was delightful so we sat for a while and enjoyed it and when it got dark we changed and went for evening meal at the same restaurant where the same irritating waiter pestered us again but the food was excellent so whilst we would rather that he hadn’t we didn’t really mind.

On the way out Kim convinced me that there was an alternative way down but it turned out that this was really just a ruse to make sure we passed a silver jewellery workshop directly below the apartments where she had a great time looking at the sparkly things on display and debating which particular piece to buy.

Pete and Jane and their friends John and Zoe were on the balcony so we joined them and Jane introduced us to the joys of Greek Metaxa brandy which we declared such a liking for we thought we might buy a bottle for ourselves the next day. We told them that we hadn’t especially enjoyed the beach experience at Lindos and with their extensive local knowledge of the area they recommended that we should try the beach at the next village of Pefkas instead which they assured us was quieter and less organized.

Greece 2010, Symi to Lindos

The ferry docked in Rhodes just before half past nine and already the harbour was busy, noisy and hot. We had to walk about five hundred metres to the bus stop where we purchased tickets for the Lindos bus which was due in about ten minutes time. The bus said no. 6, the ticket said no. 6 but we still did the usual thing of double checking this with the driver and then just to make sure checking again with two or three other passengers as well as we got on the bus and moved down the aisle. This is a curious English behaviour which makes us mistrustful of transport systems and although we know it is the right bus or train or boat, because we have just heard the person in front ask exactly the same question and be told exactly the same answer, we just have to double and triple check.

The bus left Rhodes and drove through the untidy suburbs of the new town, stopping frequently and filling up quickly with people going to the east coast resort beaches for the day and soon the bus was full to capacity. The road to Lindos took us first through Kalathea with its ribbon of high rise package tour hotels and then to the party town of Falaraki, which once had a reputation for being mad and dangerous but is apparently not so bad now because the party scene has moved to Kavos on Corfu. Falaraki is trying to change its reputation but as far as I could see it remains a bit of a dump with English pubs, wide screen televisions and a string of fast food places which would make it one of the last places in Greece that I would ever want to visit. Kim missed all of this because as usual on public transport she was fast asleep.

After Falaraki the bus drove through barren hills punctuated with the occasional village and town and then through acres of olive groves before it dropped down to the bay of Lindos before arriving at the busy bus terminal where it dropped us off. Finding the Chrysa Studios was a lot more difficult than it should have been but eventually the owner came to help us and walk with us the two hundred metres to the apartments.

They were excellent and in a perfect location with an uninterrupted view of the village and the Acropolis on the other side. Unfortunately our stay here began with a disaster. It was a hot day so Kim put the terrace umbrella up and sat in the shade but it was also very windy and an especially strong gust unexpectedly blew the canvas inside out shattering the wooden struts as it did so with an ear splitting crack as the whole thing completely disintegrated. The owner wasn’t especially pleased about this and I could see a bill coming our way so as this wasn’t a particularly good start we abandoned the terrace and went for a walk into the village instead.

Because of the early start we had skipped breakfast but now it was lunch time so we were a bit hungry so we found a suitable looking place called Mario’s with our sort of (low) prices and went inside. The way we select a taverna is to look at the price of a Greek salad and a Mythos to make sure they are in our target price range and while satisfying ourselves on this point we hadn’t paid a great deal of attention to anything else and we were surprised when we looked around to see a sign for English roast Sunday lunches and another for Pukka pies and we wondered if we had made a mistake. We needn’t have worried however because there was a good Greek menu and Mario himself explained that he liked to offer as diverse a menu as he possibly could. We choose the Greek!

After an excellent lunch we walked around for a while but Kim was tired so we went back to the room where she slept and I read and later on the balcony that we shared with our next door neighbours we met Pete and Jane who proudly told us that they liked Lindos so much that this was their twentieth consecutive year of holidaying here. For someone who gets bored after three days I cannot even begin to imagine how dull that must be but it was useful for us because they were able to give us an address book full of dining recommendations as we chatted.

Later we took their advice and went to a restaurant called Kamariko which had a roof top terrace with a view of the Acropolis, a good menu and excellent food but an irritating Russian waiter who sat himself down uninvited at our table and insisted on talking to us for fifteen minutes or so. To compensate for this intrusion there were complimentary sweets and a free shot of grappa so we declared the first day in Lindos a great success, paid, left and went back for a final drink on the terrace.