Visit Rhodes

A taste of Rhodes

Rhodes is the largest of the Dodecanese islands and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, an extraordinary cocktail of medieval crusader fortress, ancient Greek colony, Ottoman quarter, and modern beach resort. The walled Old Town of Rhodes city is its set piece: built by the Knights Hospitaller in the 14th century after they conquered the island in 1309, it's the largest inhabited medieval town in Europe, with 4km of intact walls, the dramatic Street of the Knights leading up the hill, and the imposing Palace of the Grand Master at its summit (rebuilt in the 1930s by the Italian fascist occupiers to be Mussolini's eastern Mediterranean summer residence; still spectacular inside). The 6th-century BC Acropolis at Lindos, perched on a 116-metre cliff on the east coast 50km south, is the other essential visit; below it, the white-cubic village of Lindos cascades down to a turquoise bay. Beach options run from the lively Tsambika and Faliraki to the quieter Prasonisi at the southern tip (a windsurfer favourite). Don't miss the moving Jewish Museum in the old Jewish quarter — a remembrance of the 1,673 Rhodian Jews deported to Auschwitz in 1944, only 151 of whom survived.