Category: Culture

I’ve settled during my current sojourn in Greece into a comfortable pattern. I stay for three weeks somewhere familiar, where I settle down, get reacquainted with the surrounds, work, experience things, and don’t blog much at all. Halfway through, I do a side-trip to avoid feeling too settled. When the three weeks are up, I […]

Lindos itself is a Greek village from central casting, complete with whitewash everywhere, claustrophobic alleys (to confound raiding pirates), and flowers spilling out of pots. Still very much a tourist trap, and around every corner there is another shop to cater to the passing souvenir collector, but punctuated with lots of nice villas. To cater […]

When I was touring the Hospitaller Palace, high school children were rehearsing for a musical performance. (You could tell they were high school children from the especial exuberance of their “Hey, Malaka!” to each other, once they were outside the palace.) So I went back at 8:30 pm for the free concert, which turned out […]

I got confused between the downstairs exhibit of the palace, which was off limits for the evening, and the actual archaeological museum (the Hospitaller hospital, which still looked a lot like the castle, but was on the other side of the Old Town.) My visit was rushed, but the archaeological museum has plenty of atmosphere […]

Went back to apartment, fell asleep for 4.5 hours, realised that I did not come to Old Rhodes Theme Park to sleep, and quickly frog marched myself through the Hospitaller Palace and the Archaeological Museum (originally the Hospitaller hospital). The Lonely Planet was right that upstairs was not much to write home about, although they […]

The way out of the Old Town is verdant where it isn’t monumental. Delightful walk up to and through D’Amboise gate. Glancing back at D’Amboise Gate, the moat, and the twin towers of the Suleimaniye Mosque and the Clock Tower. (The latter is branded as Mediaeval and Venetian, but its current incarnation dates from 1852.) […]

Old Rhodes, 11:40 pm. Mostly quiet, and the odd car is allowed back in, just a few stragglers at restaurants that are otherwise closed. But the off street clubs are still pumping music, and the one open souvlaki joint is waiting for the 1 am rush. The piazza that riotously greeted me with tourists and […]