Rhodes

 March 3

18C.  Today was the first day we've seen another cruise ship docked.  Oops, not a cruise ship.  A $150 yacht.  This is the PERFECT time of year to come!

Rhodes is the 4th largest Greek Island with a population of 125,000 (many more in the summer).  It is 1404 square kms and is only 19 kms off the coast of Turkey.   So we really don't know where the ship was sailing all night.  We only docked at 7 am.

imagecredit https://www.britannica.com/place/Rhodes-Greece

We have been finding it interesting to track places where the Apostle Paul travelled, and in our last blog we mentioned that the Apostle Paul was in Ephesus from 52-55 AD.  After he left Ephesus, he stopped at a number of places briefly on his way to Jerusalem. These visits were part of the final leg of his third missionary journey.  At the time of his stop in Rhodes (sometime in 56-57 AD), the city would have been a major cultural and trading hub.  He travelled there with Luke, who wrote about it in Acts 21:1

After we had torn ourselves away from them, we put out to sea and sailed straight to Kos.  The next day we went to Rhodes and from there to Patara.

Rhodes is known as the Island of Knights because it is one of the best-preserved medieval settlements in Europe.  The Old Town features the Palace of the Grand Master and the cobbled Street of the Knights, earning a UNESCO World Heritage Site designation.

In 280 BC construction began on the legendary Colossus of Rhodes, a 33 meter (108 feet) tall bronze statue of the sun god Helios and one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.  It only stood for 56 years before an earthquake snapped it at the knees.  It lay toppled to the ground attracting many visitors until 654 AD when invading Arabs dismantled it and sold the bronze.  There is supposedly a plan in the works to rebuild the statue at $283 million.  Who knows if it will ever happen?  They're trying to raise the money with crowdfunding LOL.

This is what the medieval myth thought it looked like.

imagecredit https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/a18877/architects-want-to-rebuild-colossus-of-rhodes/

However, this stance would have required the harbour to be closed for years, plus the statue could not have held its own weight and would have collapsed.  It is much more likely that the statue followed Hellenistic designs of the time:  a fit young man standing on a single pedestal with feet together or slightly apart, and possibly shielding his eyes.

imagecredit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpcx-u4u1SE

Our included tour this morning was a Town Walk at 8:15 am.  The Old City is surrounded by a huge crescent shaped wall built by the Knights of Saint John in 1309, atop the existing Byzantine wall.  The wall originally stood 8-10 meters high with a thickness of 2 meters.  

imagecredit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortifications_of_Rhodes#/media/File:Rhodes-sketchFortifications.jpg

We entered through the Virgin Mary's Gate.

It was a great medieval town to walk through, but people actually have homes in the Old City.  Yes, and lots of shops.  But what threw us was that vehicular traffic is allowed.  What do they do when the streets are packed with tour groups?  That starts in May.

Our tour guide talked.  And talked.  The only thing we remember is her saying that most of the stray cats on Rhodes are now neutered.  They invited some vets over for free vacation time on Rhodes, and the vets caught and fixed a bunch of the strays.  You can tell if a cat here has been fixed because it will have a notch taken out of its ear.

The Street of the Knights is a narrow byway with medieval structures rising on either side.  We thought it would be too narrow for traffic, but nope.

The street ends at the Palace of the Grand Master, originally a 7th century Byzantine citadel and claimed by the Knights Hospitaller during the 14th century.  Who are the Knights Hospitaller (Knights of Saint John)?  They were a Catholic military order founded in the 11th century to provide protection and medical care and protection for Holy Land pilgrims.  They are now a humanitarian organization.

The Palace of the Grand Master:

Our tour was a bit boring, just walking through empty rooms.  Oh yes, and a big sign stating that Mussolini was here.

Well, there were some very nice mosaics on the floors LOL.

After the tour, we had time to explore on our own.  We thought it might be fun to walk along the city ramparts.  But alas, they don't open until April!  Too bad!

imagecredit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortifications_of_Rhodes

We found a pharmacy to pick up some medicine, then looked for a public washroom for a mirror to apply the medicine.  Never mind, they charge.  Anton decided to use a store window, but the lady saw and told him to use the mirror on her motorcycle instead.

The other cool thing to do here is to walk the moat which runs along the western and northern side of the city.  It is about 2.5 km long and is supposed to take 1-2 hours at a casual pace.  We walked it in 45 minutes.

It is a "dry moat" meaning it was never intended to be filled with water.  It is between 20-30 meters wide at various points, and about 10-15 meters deep.  It is just a walking path, not particularly maintained.

We did have fun watching the Pelasgian Rock Lizards scurrying up the walls.

After walking the whole moat, we wandered back into town.  We ran across a guy who sold us some olive oil and more halva and turkish delight.  Our suitcase is going to weigh a ton!

We met up with Kelley and Kathy Crawford again for dinner.

•