We had initially thought of Greece in general (but Rhodes in
particular) as sort of a jumping point to get to Turkey. And you're probably tired of
hearing this, but like with most places we've gone, Rhodes may not have started as an
"anticipated favorite" but we ended up liking it quite a bit.
We arrived at 10:00 p.m. with the rude awakening that we
were not in Santorini anymore. The ride from the airport took us through neon
light-infested street after street. We finally entered a dark part of town, stopped
outside a wall, and were told that our hostel was inside. It was pitch black and there
were no lights except sporadically placed candle-like lanterns. It was simultaneously
eerie and cool. We wandered through the medieval walled roads of the "Old Town"
until we found some people to ask where our street and hostel was. We couldn't wait until
daylight so we could see where we'd been!
We learned that the high walls were erected by the Knights
of St. John, The island itself is quite large compared to little Santorini--too much to
see in the couple of days we had, so we concentrated primarily on our little neighborhood,
the Old Town (and capital) of Rodos.
We happened to be there on "National Museum Day"
all museums and attractions were completely free. That made it much easier to pop in and
out of castles and museums without having to consider where we wanted to spend our last
few Drachmas.
We started by walking around the moat of the Palace of the
Grand Masters, then went inside to explore its 300 rooms filled with 16th century
furniture and Roman mosaic floors. There happened to be a tour in English going on right
in front of us, so we lurked behind and caught bits and pieces of it. Then we moved on to
The Hospital of the Knights which was another magnificent medieval structure converted
into an Archaological Museum.
We wondered if we hadn't taken a wrong turn and ended up in
a Germany colony; it seemed to be the national language of Rhodes. We learned later that
May was traditionally the month for Germans tourists; if we stayed on through August all
we'd hear would be Italian.
We didn't do too much else; because of current anti-Turk
sentiments in Greece we were a little concerned about getting into Turkey, but found a
hydrofoil that would take us to into the Turkish port of Marmaris. We also met an
interesting American expatriate who co-owned a great Italian restaurant (her husband was
Italian).
One day we might restrict ourselves to eating only the food
of the country we're in, but until then, we like swapping off. Our favorite haunt in
Madrid was a Chinese food place, and now our favorite Greek place was Italian. Go figure.
Wonder what our favorite food will be in Turkey?
