All Rhodes Lead…

Today was our most enjoyable shore excursion yet! The ship arrived in Rhodes around noon, so we had a leisurely morning lounging, reading, and journaling. Our shore excursion left around 1PM, and we rode in the bus for about an hour. Rhodes is beautiful with mountains and seashore vistas throughout our ride.

Our destination was Lindos, a village of a few hundred people, built in a traditional Greek style – boxy houses painted white and washed with lye soap twice a year at Christmas and Easter. The roads of town were twisty and narrow (and confusing!)

We walked with our tour guide, Anastasia, through the village and then up, up, up, up to the Lindos Acropolis (acropolis: acro meaning height and polis meaning city, so high point of the city). The acropolis was surrounded by a medieval fortress built by the Knights of Sir John. Inside the fortress is a temple to Athena, the goddess of Rhodes. Somehow, I was still able to climb all of those stairs, despite my back troubles from the camel ride.

The trip up was well worth the work! It afforded us a spectacular view of the ocean and of Lindos:
      

We had two hours to explore the acropolis and the village – a wealth of time compared to our other stops. Andrew and I explored the ruins of the temple and the fortress. Then we took our time descending back to the village, snapping pictures along the way. We explored the village a bit; its a charming place with winding streets and lots of shops (yay!).

We had to walk up a bit of a hill to get back to the bus, but took our time, finding a small cemetery and then grabbing a Diet Coke at a small convenience store (next to the cemetery, oddly enough).

On our way back to the ship, we stopped at a local ceramics workshop, where we saw a demonstration and had the opportunity to buy some souvenirs (which, of course, we did). Then it was back to the ship.

A few notes I want to remember:

• There were goats all over the island
• we could have hired donkeys to get us back down to Lindos from the acropolis, but it seemed a bad idea after all the trouble I’ve been having since the camel ride
• the guide told us that the deer is a symbol of Rhodes because deer were brought to the island to help with the snake problem – the idea is that deer will stomp on snakes and kill them

Check out all of my pictures from the day at my Rhodes/Lindos Excursion Flickr photoset.

Tags: trip report