馃摲 Adventures in Travel & Photography: Island of the Knights - Rhodes
Hey Adventurers
Hope you are having a great weekend and a great start to 2019.
For us, it has not slowed down at all. Never seems to be enough time :) But then my system would probably go into shock if I stopped for a moment!
Anyway, I thought it was time to share some more adventures as everyone seemed to enjoy my Israel series. During that same trip that started in Morocco, followed around the coast of the Meditareaancean to Italy I was also fortunate to tick off one of my biggest bucket list items... doing a Cruise for my 40th birthday. It was something I'd thought a bit about in my 20s and then kind of forgot.
When we planned our big adventure back in 2012, I'd actually forgotten all about it. It wasn't until I was double checking our 5-month Itinerary when I realised that on my 40th, it turned out I'd be on a Cruise ship somewhere off the coast of Greece. The universe provides hey!
Anyhoo, one of our shore stops was in Rhodes, somewhere I'd heard of but didn't really know much about.
Rhodes is the largest of the group of Greek Islands known as the Dodecanese and is the historical capital of the area. It's also teeming with history and a really really big fort. So hubby, of course, was as excited as a kid at Christmas. What boy doesn't like forts?
I knew Rhodes purely for the Colossus, which was one of the Seven Ancient Wonders of the World - and of course, it's a UNESCO World Heritage site so was another tick in the box in my quest to visit as many UNESCO sites as possible!
Rhodes has a long standing history dating all the way back to the Neolithic period, but probably best known during the Hellenistic Age when it was part of Alexandria's vast empire. During the crusades, the city was occupied and fortified by the Knights Hospitalier until it eventually fell to the Ottoman Empire. I have to say everywhere we went from Africa, the Middle East and through Europe, so much of it was part of the Ottoman Empire... I really never realised it was so vast!
During the Italio-Turkish War of 1912 the Italians seized the Island and along with the rest of the Dodecanese should have been handed over - which of course the Turks refused to do until 1923. During the Second World War when Italy flipped teams the Germans took over until after the Armistice when finally this musical chairs of "who owns Rhodes" finally landed on Greece!
Exploring the medieval Old Town from the days of the crusader Knights can take a day of leisurely wandering through fort ruins, the Palace of the Grand Masters and the Street of the Knights.
You can walk through the old fortifications composed of a huge wall with bastions and a moat (now dry), and you can walk out to the Fort of St Nicholas, home to the hundreds of stray cats that are typical throughout the Mediterranean.
We only had a day to explore the Old Town before heading back on our boat, but there is definetely a lot more there to keep you occupied. Hopefully one day we will make it back!
Location | Rhodes, Greece 2012 |
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Camera | Panasonic DMC FZ100 |
Editing | Adobe Lightroom CC |
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Til next time,
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