Insight Guides Pocket Rhodes (Travel Guide eBook)

Insight Guide

• Publisher: Berlitz Travel
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781786719775
• eBook ISBN: 9781785731723
• Topic: Desarrollo personal
• Subtopic: Viajes

Insight Pocket Guides: ideal itineraries and top travel tips

Plan your trip, plan perfect days and discover how to get around - this pocket-sized guide is a convenient, quick-reference companion to discovering what to do and see in Rhodes, from top attractions like the imposing Palace of the Grand Masters and Tharr Monastery, to hidden gems, including the evocative Valley of the Butterflies.

- Compact, concise, and packed with essential information about Where to Go and What to Do, this is an ideal on-the-move companion when you're exploring Rhodes
- Covers Top Ten Attractions, including the Street of the Knights in Rhodes Old Town and the stunning beach at Tsambka Bay and Perfect Tour itinerary suggestions
- Offers an insightful overview of landscape, history and culture
- Contains an invaluable pull-out map, and essential practical information on everything from Eating Out to Getting Around
- Sharp design and colour-coded sections make for an engaging reading experience

About Insight Guides: Insight Guides is a pioneer of full-colour guide books, with almost 50 years' experience of publishing high-quality, visual travel guides with user-friendly, modern design. We produce around 400 full-colour print guide books and maps, as well as phrase books, picture-packed eBooks and apps to meet different travellers' needs. Insight Guides' unique combination of beautiful travel photography and focus on history and culture create a unique visual reference and planning tool to inspire your next adventure.

Where To Go

Rhodes is an easy island to explore, with a good road network and public transport for independent sightseeing. The old quarters of Rhodes Town and Líndos are mostly car-free, and make ideal places to wander through on foot. There are also numerous tour companies for those who want an organised itinerary.

This guide is divided into several sections, exploring Rhodes Old and New Town first. Then there’s a tour of the eastern coast, with a separate section for the ancient settlement of Líndos and the area south of it, followed by another section covering the western side of the island. Finally, day excursions are suggested.

Rhodes Old Town

Nothing quite prepares you for the spectacle of Rhodes Old Town (Ródos) 1 [map] , especially seen from an approaching boat. An immense citadel with high sandstone walls 4km (2.5 miles) around, facing the town’s three natural harbours, it has survived various sieges and bombardments, plus the visibly corrosive effects of damp sea air.

Columns at the partially reconstructed Hellenistic stoa on the acropolis at Líndos

Getty Images

Built on the site of ancient Rhodes, itself founded some four centuries prior to the birth of Christ, the Old Town served from 1309 onwards as the headquarters of the Knights Hospitaller of St John, one of the most powerful of the Christian military orders. Originally established to provide medical care for pilgrims on their journeys to the Holy Land, they soon became one of the leading military opponents of Islam, harrying both Arab and Kurdish armies and later the Ottoman Empire.

In December 1522, after a long siege, Ottoman forces wrested Rhodes from the grasp of the crusader-knights and inaugurated nearly four centuries of Muslim Turkish rule. Vestiges of their influence are still obvious within the walls. The turn of the 20th century saw accelerated Ottoman decline and, in 1912, following the Italian-Turkish War, the Dodecanese islands (including Rhodes) were occupied by Italy. In contrast to Ottoman neglect, the Italians invested considerable effort and money into the Isole Italiane d’Egeo (Italian Islands of the Aegean), as they styled this cherished Mediterranean colony.

In the northernmost sector of the Old Town is the Knights’ Quarter or Collachium (kollákio in Greek), where each of eight langues (nationalities) within the order had its inn and the Grand Master had his palace. Beyond this is the Boúrgos or civilian area, where you will find a fascinating maze of streets, comprising the former Turkish and Jewish sectors of the town.

Entering the Old Town through D’Amboise Gate

Britta Jaschinski/Apa Publications

The Walls and Gates

The first impressive feature of the town is the walls themselves. Dating mostly from preparations for the 1480 siege, they sit strong and proud, especially beautiful at dawn, rosy-hued in the sun’s first rays, or at night, lit by the soft glow of wrought-iron lamps. The Knights did not begin the citadel from scratch; they elaborated a series of relatively modest Byzantine defences, creating eight sections of curtain walls, each one the responsibility of a separate langue (for more information, click here).

At one time each curtain had a gate; today there are 12 gates in use, each uniquely designed. Many are only wide enough to accept pedestrians or scooters. The most interesting is the D’Amboise Gate A [map] : situated in the northwest corner near the Palace of the Grand Masters (for more information, click here), it was built in 1512, during the reign of Grand Master Emery d’Amboise. It curves in an S-shape to outwit attackers and is then followed by a second, much simpler gate, Ágios Andónios (St Anthony’s), which lies between two curtain walls.

Beside this gate is one of four discreetly signed entry tunnel-stairways leading to the dry moat B [map] , attractively landscaped on the west and southeast sides. You can follow a path in the moat from here all the way around the landward walls to the Akandiá Gate on the east side of the city. The walk takes about 30 minutes. However, it is not possible to gain direct access to many of the gates on this route as they sit high in the walls above, with bridges over the moat linking the Old Town to the outside world.

Conqueror’s gate

Victorious Ottoman Sultan Süleyman entered town through the southwesterly Ágios Athanásios Gate in 1523 and ordered it sealed up thereafter; it was only reopened by the Italians. The gate is, however, now universally referred to as ‘Ágios Frangískos’ after the Italian-built Catholic church of that name just outside.

On the eastern side of the fortifications, facing Kolóna Harbour, is the impressive Marine Gate (for more information, click here), plus in the northeast, linking Kolóna and Mandráki harbours, the smaller Ágios Pávlos (St Paul’s) Gate (for more information, click here). In 1924 the Italians decided that traffic would need access along the waterfront. They altered the walls, creating widened entrances for automobiles on the shore between Mandráki and Kolóna ports. The most important of these, Freedom Gate (Pýli Eleftherías) is located just west of St Paul’s Gate, isolating it and the now-vestigial Naillac Tower from the rest of the citadel. Today many visitors enter the Old Town through this gate as it is the nearest to the taxi stand and main Mandráki bus stations.

The Order of the Knights Hospitaller of St John

This religious military order had three classes of membership, each bound by vows of chastity, poverty and obedience. Fully fledged knights were recruited from Europe’s noblest families and numbered around 650; commoners could serve as soldiers or nurses, while chaplains saw to their spiritual needs. There were eight langues or ‘tongues’: English, German, French, Provençal, Auvergnat, Aragonese (in fact Catalan), Castilian and Italian. Each langue lived in a compound called an inn, under an appointed prior. For security, they went about in pairs and left the walled domain only on horseback.

French influence outweighed the other tongues when it came to electing the lifelong post of Grand Master. Thus, 14 of the 19 Grand Masters were from one of the French langues, and French was the Order’s spoken language (Latin was used for official documents). The Italians’ maritime talents made them the obvious choice to command the fleet, while other tongues each defended a section, or ‘curtain’, of the city walls.

After being expelled from Rhodes, the knights were without a base for seven years, until the island of Malta was offered to them by Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. They changed their name to the Knights of Malta and successfully repelled a four-month Ottoman siege in 1565. Despite this, the order was fast becoming obsolete; nations could now outfit their own fleets more efficiently, and the new trade routes to the Americas and the Far East dwarfed the significance of the Mediterranean.

Nowadays the order has been revived in many countries (including England’s St John Ambulance Brigade) and engages in various medical and charitable ...

Table of contents

• Rhodes’s Top 10 Attractions
• A Perfect Tour of Rhodes
• Introduction
• A Brief History
• Where To Go
• What To Do
• Eating Out
• Reading the Menu
• Restaurants
• A–Z Travel Tips
• Recommended Hotels