It was also sunny, warm and not windy, a combination we've not seen too often recently. We started our day with breakfast outside, on the Terrace Deck, with the Rhodes walled Old Town as our view. We lingered over coffee and chatted with new friends and it was nearly 10:30am before we finally walked off the ship. It was only a five minute walk through St. Catherine's Gate into the Old Town. Rhodes' Old Town is comprised of three main areas: shops primarily on Sokratous Street, restaurants and the Avenue of the Knights. Many of the streets are paved with polished pebbles, a leftover from the days of Ottoman rule.
The wall of Rhodes Old Town (note the minaret, at the Suleymaniye Mosque,
first constructed After the Ottoman conquest of 1522)
The tzivaeri player du jour
(He gave me a small rock in return for his tip.)
St. Catherine's Gate, one of 11 gates into the fortified Old Town of Rhodes
Fountain Square and the Socratus Street Marker
Archeological Museum of Rhodes
We were instantly transported back to medieval times when we walked up the Avenue of the Knights toward the Palace of the Grand Masters (even thought the Palace itself was closed). I must have taken over 100 photos of the arched doors and courtyards and alleys. The best part was that the Pacific Princess was the only ship in port and the streets of the Old Town were nearly empty. Except for the occasional scooter or motorcycle (the Old Town is mostly off limits to cars), it was easy to imagine what life was like there a thousand years ago. It was our favorite part of Old Town and the best part of the day.
Avenue of the Knights, definitely a 'pinch me' moment!
I loved the detailed doorways (as you'll soon see!)
The coat of arms for one nationality of knights
The Knights of St. John were divided into seven separate language groups, each one assigned to defending a different section of the town wall. Each group lived in an inn that re-created the home they’d left behind. To this day, the Spanish order’s inn still feels like a slice of Spain, the German order’s inn resembles a German fort. We also saw an area that G thought might have housed the many horses the army needed, and imagined them bedecked in their heavy armor with their hoofbeats echoing off the thick stone walls.
This gated garden was beautiful
We had never seen a poinsettia tree before!
Really, all we needed to enjoy the day was some imagination. In fact, we later talked with people who did an island tour and some of them kind of regretted it. The magic was right at our doorstep gangway.
Through one of the large wooden doors off of the Avenue of the Knights was a tiny marine archeological museum, free of charge, displaying the large urn-type containers that were used to transport goods on sailing vessels over a thousand years ago. I believe they were called amphorae (plural of amphora) and there were many on display, recovered from sunken vessels. There was also a wonderful map depicting ancient trade routes between Europe and Asia and, of course, Rhodes was right at the center of them. It was the kind of small museum we both love to visit, not requiring a large commitment of time, just adding a little to our knowledge about the area.
It was a Monday, but this museum was open
The map of Mediterranean trade routes indicating Rhodes was centrally located between Europe and Asia and Northern Africa.
We completed our walk up the Avenue of the Knights and then circled back around toward the restaurant area. There were plenty more photo ops along the way; in fact too many. I'm trying without success to eliminate some favorite photos.
The best part? No crowds! In fact, almost no people.
The Palace of the Grand Masters
G had seen a Segway tour and wanted to do one at 2pm but I was still achy from the Kotor Death Climb (I know it's TMI, but my glutes are as tight as nautical knots) and wasn't all that interested in joining him. We saw Cruise Director Sammie and last night's Cabaret Lounge singer, Brenda Cochrane, and a few other ladies (including Joy who was a Princess Captains Circle host for 40 years before her retirement) sitting at an outdoor cafe and I was invited to join them while G took an hour long tour. It worked out perfectly. I drank a local wine (Moschofilero, very nice) and had some hummus and bread and salad and generally enjoyed a ladies afternoon out while G and his guide (just the two of them) rode all around the Old Town and the outside of the wall and the moat on one side and over to the windmills by the harbor.
What I see when I look at my blog in another country.
It's Greek to me!
He returned about 3:30pm and while we were walking back to the ship through the shopping area he spotted a reproduction of a Greek coin featuring Helios, the god of the sun, cast on high quality silver and surrounded with gold and that is something he has always wanted. I can't tell you how many old coins we have looked at over the years, none of them exactly right, but this one made all the looking and waiting worthwhile.. And so it became his birthday, anniversary and Christmas presents for the next several years and he is so darned pleased with it. Then we had to buy him a Greek shirt of white linen with shadow stripes and he wore both to dinner tonight and received lots of compliments. That's my guy!
It wasn't one of our cheaper days but it is also one that we'll never forget.
We made it back to the ship at 4:20pm (all onboard was 4:30pm; seldom early, never late) and took quick showers to be in the PES Lounge for a beautiful sunset and sailaway. It was the Italian menu at dinner tonight and headwater Antonio made a delicious penne arrabbiata and we both had that accompanied by merlot and some orange sorbet for dessert and followed dinner up with the production show Cinematastic in the Cabaret Lounge. G actually spent a little time in the casino and came out ahead but we'll still be asleep by 10:30pm.
It was a very good day. :-)
Looking back at this post the next morning, I wondered if I had adequately conveyed the overwhelming sense the Rhodes was truly at the crossroads of history, a mingling of several ancient civilizations. I am posting verbatim from Rick Steves' Mediterranean Cruise Ports guide the information that follows, giving a history of Rhodes in a nutshell. This is one fascinating place!
Rhodes’ HistoryRhodes sightseeing is more meaningful to visitors who can tease out its many strands of history. From the ancient Greeks, to a knightly order of Crusaders, to the Ottoman sultans, to a 20th-century tug-of-war among the Italians, Germans, British, and Greeks, Rhodes has long been a crossroads of history.Because this eastern point is where the sun first shines on the Greek world each morning, the ancient Greeks believed Rhodes to be the home of the sun god, Helios. The local sandstone is embedded with seashells, leading the ancients to surmise that Helios had raised this place from the deep to create a home. In honor of their sun god, they erected here one of the seven wonders of the ancient world: the famous Colossus of Rhodes. Made of bronze and polished to a golden-like sheen, this 100-foot-tall statue of Helios took 12 years to build (in the late third century B.C.) but stood for only 56 years before it was toppled by an earthquake. After the Oracle of Delphi warned Rhodians that they had offended Helios, they decided not to rebuild it. While not a trace of the statue survives (modern bronze deer statues mark one possible location, overlooking the harbor), its legacy does—tales of the statue inspired the creators of the Statue of Liberty, which is of comparable size.The 304 B.C. defeat of Rhodes’ dangerous enemy Demetrius (which the Colossus was erected to celebrate) sparked a golden age for the island. For a time, Rhodes was a trading, naval, and cultural powerhouse. But as the Roman Empire leadership was being reshuffled, Rhodes backed Julius Caesar; after his assassination, its fortunes fell. Rhodes languished through Byzantine times.Later, in the Middle Ages, Rhodes became a pawn of European power politics in the 14th century. As the nearest Greek island to the Holy Land, this became a logical stopping point for passing Crusaders from all over Europe. In 1309, the Knights of St. John—an order of the Knights Hospitaller of Jerusalem—claimed Rhodes as their headquarters, and transformed it into a bustling European medieval burg, governed by their grand master. Rhodes became a magnet for knights coming from all over Europe, who gave the city a uniquely cosmopolitan appearance. In 1552, Ottoman Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent kicked the knights off the island, adding it to his empire. (They fled to Malta, where they became the Knights of Malta—an order still in existence.)The Ottomans controlled Rhodes for centuries—erecting pointy minarets, building baths, and imbuing the place with an unmistakably Turkish aura that it retains today. Under the Ottomans, Rhodes remained predominantly ethnic Greek, although a large Jewish population has always existed here. As the Ottoman Empire floundered in the early 20th century, Rhodes fell under Italian rule (in 1912). The occupying Italians tore down many of the Ottoman structures, rebuilt some of the earlier medieval ones (such as the Palace of the Grand Masters), and added an Italian layer to Rhodes’ already eclectic mix. A few decades later, after Italy pulled out of World War II, British and German forces wrangled over who would control Rhodes and the Dodecanese Islands. Only after the dust settled, and Italy signed a 1947 peace treaty, did Rhodes officially become part of Greece for the first time since the Byzantine Empire.Source: Rick Steves' Mediterranean Cruise Ports