Rhodes; Friday, 15 October, 2021

Originally, I had another full day tour of the Island booked, but this had been cancelled whilst I was in the air on Wednesday as the weather forecast wasn’t good. When I woke up it looked fine, but not long after a howling wind started whipping round the hotel and a very impressive thunderstorm, accompanied by some very impressively heavy rain roared through town.

After breakfast I hung around in my room for some time, waiting for the worst of the storm to pass, and by about 10:30 the sky was turning blue and the sun was even starting to come out, so I headed out of the hotel and walk the very short distance to the open-top bus tour bus stop virtually outside the hotel.

There are two open-top tours one has a red bus one has a yellow bus and whilst they are run by different companies (so tickets aren’t interchangeable) apart from that they are identical in every way. The bus I’d gone for this morning was the Yellow one. I did a full circuit of the route before staying on and carrying on round to the Acropolis.

Located on the high point of the city, overlooking the whole of Rhodes Town the Acropolis was the focal point of the city, with a number of temples scattered across the site. Today very little remains, apart from some of the superstructure and a couple of columns in the temple at the very top. I spent a little while walking round the top of the site, before descending down through the stairs to the lower level where there is more to see in the form of the ancient theatre – which is still in use for outdoor performances today – and the Ancient Olympic Stadium.

I had a long walk round both before heading back towards the top of the site to pick the next tour up and continue on round back to the Old Town.

I headed through the streets of the Old Town until I came to the Archaeological museum, which houses many of the finds of the Italian archaeologists who were the first to properly study the archaeology of the island during their occupation. The museum itself is housed in the former hospital of the Knights, which by itself is an impressive building.

I spent quite a long time looking round the museum before heading out onto the impressive Street of the Knights that runs up behind the museum towards the grand palace at the top. The street was home to the different Inns that represented the different counties that the Knights belonged to and is by some way the most impressive street in the city.

At the top of the street is the Grand Masters Palace – the headquarters building for the order, and home to the head knight. It’s a suitably impressive structure, having been restored during the Italian period. The palace is open to look around and it is as impressive inside as it is outside. From the grand staircase through to the enormous cavernous rooms inside you can’t help but be impressed by the power on display.

By the time I’d finished looking round the palace the light was starting to fade, so I had a little wander round the nearby area before heading back out through the Amboise Gate and wandering back down to the hotel for dinner and an early night.