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Rhodes revisited: Lunch at a familiar restaurant
and a walk in the old town
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Sunday 28th September 2014
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We awoke at 7:30am to see this beautiful
sunrise. It was very windy indeed, despite the sea looking
reasonably calm. |
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We were looking forward to our arrival
in Kos at 8:00am, as scheduled. |
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Five minutes later there was an announcement
from the bridge. Kos harbour was closed because of the high
winds and it was unclear when it would re-open. A decision
had been taken to sail on to Rhodes instead, which was the
next port of call on our itinerary. The good news, we were
told, was that we would return to Kos after visiting Rhodes
and so we wouldn't miss our visit there. Our arrival time
for Rhodes was given as noon. We were promised more information
during the course of the morning regarding revised plans
for on-board activities and shore excursions. |
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At noon and as promised, we arrived
at Rhodes (town). It was interesting to see the Greenpeace
"Rainbow Warrior" docked next to our ship. |
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We had visited Rhodes a couple of years
before (on the same ship) so we were not tempted to take
the guided tour again (not that we stayed with the guided
tour for long the last time!). |
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Together with Susan, we decided to skip lunch aboard
and to make our own way into the town for lunch at the
same restaurant we had eaten at last time.
We recognised the owner and his wife immediately.
When we told him that we had dined at his restaurant
two years before, he looked at us carefully and then claimed
that he remembered us, which was clearly untrue, but it
did make us laugh. Later, he approached us again and after
looking closely at both of us again, asked, quite seriously
whether we were brothers. We both just nodded in amusement
(his English wasn't up to us trying to explain), to which
he smiled broadly and said, "I knew it, you look
the same!". We laughed even more after that.
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After lunch, Susan went off to do
some shopping and we mooched around the old town. |
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We came across a sign pointing to places
that aren't ordinarily open to the public, but which were
open today. We decided to take a look. |
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We weren't sure what we were looking
at, because there wasn't much information in English, but later,
I found the following:-
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"The church and monastery of St. Augustine
was once the centre of the monastery of the influential
Order of St. Augustine in medieval Rhodes. It
consists of the church and a yard on the north
side, the main area of the temple on the northeast
side and the cells on the east side. Recent excavations
brought to light an older one-room church of the
14th century which was probably the reason why
Dragonino Clavelli added a chapel at the north
side in the 15th century dedicated to Agios Nikolaos
and was used as a burial area for his family.
During World War II, a bomb destroyed half of
the church and its surrounding area. After its
restoration, the church was used as a private
home up until recently when the Archaeological
Service of Rhodes took exclusive ownership of
the building."
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The old mosque of Ereze Pasha (I
think) |
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It's funny how we found ourselves
heading back towards the ship each day at 4.00pm... could it be
tea time? |
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After tea, we needed to walk off
the cake! |
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Tower and Fort of Saint Nicholas |
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Mandraki Harbour, with its three
disused windmills, built by the Knights of St John |
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After dinner, we took advantage
of the fact that we were going to be in port overnight, to take
an evening stroll. |
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| Having had a very relaxing day, we
were looking forward to an early start and our excursion
to the acropolis at Lindos tomorrow. |
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