Day 7 - 11 July Rhodes

 Today - Greece! Starting on the island of Rhodes (Row-dose). Another warm, sunny day, probably about 30 degrees, and up and out by 8am.

As usual we were on a bus - they all look and feel much the same. And as usual I fell asleep on pretty much every leg. We left the town of Rhodes straqight away, down the eastern side to Lindos. This is a postcard-pretty whitewashed village on a hillside leading down to a harbour. Above it is the Acropolis of Lindos. So we walked through the narrow cobbled lanes of the town and up the steep path to the walls of the Acropolis. There was quite a crowd and a queue - luckily the queue was to buy tickets, which we had, so we bypassed it and climbed the stairs in through the walls.

The ruins of the temple and the backdrop were beautiful though. Eventually we walked back down the path and through the town. By this stage the queue really stretched all down the hill, the town was packed and the path from the town to the main road and car park above it were packed.

Next we had a fairly early but pleasant greek lunch at a local restaurant, Taverna Tsambikos. After that we detoured to near the western side of the island, to Mount Filerimos. The monastery there, Ialyssos, has erected a series of stations of the cross which are not very intrerestig, but they pass down a shaded path to a point with a very good view across the sea and adjacent islands.

Finally we drove back into Rhodes to the old city. This is very impressive and largely restored to its medievalstyle with later Ottoman additions removed. It extends down to the harbour where the streets are taken up with market stalls. But we started near the top of the old city at the Palance of the Grand Masters (of the Knights of St John). Which is an impressive fort with several walls and dry moats. The inside walls have been repaired with is less authentic but more complete. It is austere with few decorations but elaborate floor mosaics from the 2nd and 3rd centuries in almost every room.

Finally we walked down the lanes, past the shops and were bussed the last kilometer back to the ship. There were two other cruise ships in, which helped explain the crowds everywhere.

We got back to the ship by about 4pm and were quite washe out by that point.