Greece - Korina Miller [417]
Main post office (Map) On Mandraki Harbour.
TOURIST INFORMATION
EOT (Map; 22410 35226; www.ando.gr; cnr Makariou & Papagou; 8am-2.45pm Mon-Fri) Supplies brochures, city maps and the Rodos News, a free English-language newspaper.
TRAVEL AGENCIES
Charalampis Travel (Map; 22410 35934; ch_trav@otenet.gr; 1 Akti Saktouri) Books flights and boat tickets.
Skevos’ Travel Agency (Map; 22410 22461; skeos@rho.forthnet.gr; 111 Amerikis) Books boat and flight tickets throughout Greece.
Triton Holidays (Map; 22410 21690; www.tritondmc.gr; Plastira 9, Mandraki) Helpful staff book air and sea travel, hire cars, book accommodation and plan tours throughout the Dodecanese. They also sell tickets to Turkey.
Sights
OLD TOWN
In medieval times the Knights of St John lived in the Knights’ Quarter, while other inhabitants lived in the Hora. The 12m-thick city walls are closed to the public but you can take a pleasant walk around the imposing walls of the Old Town via the wide and pedestrianised moat walk. All the Old Town sights are on Map.
Knights’ Quarter
Begin your tour of the Knights’ Quarter at Liberty Gate, crossing the small bridge into the Old Town. In a medieval building is the original site of the Museum of Modern Greek Art ( 22410 23766; www.mgamuseum/gr; 2 Plateia Symis; 3 sites €3; 8am-2pm Tue-Sat). Inside you’ll find maps and carvings. The main exhibition is now at the New Art Gallery ( 22410 43780; Plateia G Charitou) with an impressive collection of painting, engraving and sculpture from some of Greece’s most popular 20th-century artists, including Gaitis Giannis, Vasiliou Spiros and Katraki Vaso. For the museum’s temporary exhibits, head to the Centre of Modern Art ( 22410 77071; 179 Socratous St). All three galleries keep the same hours and one ticket gains you entrance to all three.
Across the pebbled street from the Museum of Modern Greek Art, take in the remains of the 3rd-century-BC Temple of Aphrodite, one of the few ancient ruins in the Old Town.
Continuing down Plateia Argyrokastrou, the Museum of the Decorative Arts ( 22410 72674; Plateia Argyrokastrou; admission €2; 8.30am-2.40pm Tue-Sun) houses an eclectic array of artefacts from around the Dodecanese. It’s chock-a-block with instruments, pottery, carvings, clothing and spinning wheels and gives a colourful view into the past. Captions are sparse; pick up explanatory notes at the door.
In the atmospheric 15th-century knights’ hospital up the road is the Museum of Archaeology ( 22410 27657; Plateia Mousiou; admission €3; 8am-4pm Tue-Sun). Its biggest draw is the exquisite Aphrodite Bathing, a 1st-century-BC marble statue that was recovered from the local seabed. Many believe it is the cult statue missing from the nearby Temple of Aphrodite. The rest of the museum is filled with ancient statues and pottery found on Rhodes.
Wander up the Avenue of the Knights (Ippoton), once home to the knights themselves. They were divided into seven ‘tongues’ or languages, according to their place of origin – England, France, Germany, Italy, Aragon, Auvergne and Provence – and each was responsible for protecting a section of the bastion. The Grand Master, who was in charge, lived in the palace, and each tongue was under the auspices of a bailiff.
To this day the street exudes a noble and forbidding aura, despite modern offices now occupying most of the inns. Its lofty buildings stretch in a 600m-long unbroken wall of honey-coloured stone blocks, and its flat facade is punctuated by huge doorways and arched windows.
First on the right, if you begin at the eastern end of the Avenue of the Knights, is the 1519 Inn of the Order of the Tongue of Italy. Next door is the Palace of Villiers de l’sle Adam; after Sultan Süleyman had taken the city, it was Villiers de l’sle who had the humiliating task of arranging the knights’ departure from the island. Next along is the Inn of France, the most ornate and distinctive of all the inns. On the opposite side of the street is the Villaragut Building, a knight’s home converted into an Ottoman Mansion in the 18th century.