A Tour of the Island

The journey around the island was, for the greater part, most pleasurable with some amazing views, beautiful gradients of colors from the turquoise to deep blue of the sea, varying hues in the hills and inland vegetation, and rich blue skies. We saw intriguing sea mists and beautiful sunsets across the island. Long stretches of countryside when we seemed to be the only people on the island and enjoyed snacks in isolated tavernas with the exclusive attention of the owners.

However, I guess the memory that will be etched into my mind are the times that we inadvertently ended up on a road which was less than well maintained—that’s a euphemism for a really bad highway. One example of this was when we left a very badly signed village and headed confidently towards our next port of call. The road narrowed significantly and after a mile or two, the road surface deteriorated. You need to know that we weren’t in a 4x4, just a small family car, and the road soon resembled a dirt track. Within a few more meters, there was no way that we could turn round with a drop on both sides of the “road”. By the time of the ascent, we were driving on a track made up of loose rubble and it became very difficult to maintain traction. Clearly, this road was not a main thoroughfare and I was beginning to panic significantly! I envisaged the undercarriage being damaged and the vehicle becoming non-roadworthy. How was I going to explain to the hire company where I was and what I was doing on such a road? As a precaution, we turned on the mobile—no signal. I was now less than happy, but with no choice but to go forward, we slowly inched our way on this precarious track. Needless to say in the end we made it to a freshly tarmacked road. The journey was now one to enjoy. Strange how the negative experiences become so memorable!

Quick Tips:

If you’re hiring a car, make sure it has A/C—this is really essential in Rhodes from June to September.

To get basic for a few sentences! Remember that on Rhodes, as in most of Greece, you must not dispose of toilet pape, down the toilet. It has to be placed in the waste bin that you’ll find in all bathrooms. It never feels that hygienic to me but that’s the way it works in Greece, so you’ll need to comply or risk blocking the entire sewage system of your hotel.

Tap water on Rhodes is drinkable but it does come with a high mineral content so it may have some impact on your system. We always start with bottled water and then boil extra each day transferring the cooled down water into the old water bottles and store in the fridge. This has the effect, I believe, of reducing some of the mineral content. Well, it certainly seems to work for us although others use tap water to no ill effect, better to be safe than sorry is my maxim.

ATMs are fairly accessible on the island. Pefkos had two (one which had the reputation of being unreliable although we did not find this to be case) and I reckon it is far more straightforward to get money out in this way rather than messing around with travelers checks, etc. Access/Visa and Mastercard are all acceptable forms of credit card payment accepted on Rhodes.

It is also worth checking what rate of commission your bank charges on foreign transactions. If you are a UK citizen, then I would strongly recommend you join up with Nationwide as they do not charge on either credit or debit cards.

When visiting a major town, it's a good idea, in these days of digital cameras to take a photograph or two of where you've parked the car or where you need to get back to if you're on an organized tour. If you get disorientated all you need to do is to flash the image at a local. Beats trying to remember the name of the road you need to return to.

Best Way To Get Around:

You have limited choices as to how to get around the island. There are a few internal tours that take you around the region, but they’re not particularly cheap (around €30 per person) and are fairly restrictive insofar as they only take you round a prescribed route and only stop where they think they should, normally tourist traps where you will be disembarked and brought back at whistle stop pace; just long enough for you to visit their recommended shops. I’m not suggesting that they shouldn’t be considered as an option, but clearly you can take things at a much more leisurely pace if you are in charge.

We have heard of people using taxis but as a single journey from Pefkos to Rhodes is €40, I would imagine a day’s hire would be fairly steep. So, in most practical terms, you really need to hire a vehicle. We opted for a small car hired from one of the larger companies. We’d originally looked at an "offer" from our tour company, but on further inquiries, we discovered that the offer was “in their favor” and not ours. They were charging us an extra €15 for booking through them with no extra privileges. Needless to say, we canceled that arrangement and booked direct with “Marathon”, a company that has offices in most of the resorts and towns on Rhodes. All hire prices seem to be much the same, but you do need to double check on the type of insurance cover that they offer. Is it CDW with no excess and does it cover you for theft, damage to tires, etc? Marathon’s did!

Despite most tour companies' strong advice not to hire motorcycles, we saw a number of them on the road. I’m sure if you’ve ridden a motorbike before, the main roads on Rhodes are no more treacherous than any other country. If you’re a novice rider, I’d suggest you stick to four wheels, as the side roads are often very poor. We did see a number of four-wheeled open buggies; these are also for hire if you really want to be exposed to the elements. They also look pretty cool!

This is a roadside restaurant on the Pefkos/Lardos road just inside the ‘town line’ of Lardos. It has got a lot going for it with waterfall and water fountain as center pieces, but jousting for prime position with a well lit ‘rock garden’ with aloe vera and other succulents.

We really struggled to choose from the appetizing menu, which had mouth-watering descriptions of all the dishes. After a while, distracted by the many visual sights in the garden, I opted for an uninspiring sounding ‘Special Village Lamb’ whilst my wife, sticking with the lamb theme, went for Corallis Special Lamb with raisins, plums, almonds, and a hint of brandy (truth be known, it was probably the brandy that swayed her).

But back to the garden restaurant with its varying sized terracotta pots, home to palms, cacti and herbs. A well-tended raised garden was crowded with a beautiful array of colorful peonies, a banana plant, palms, and succulents. Although I refer to this as a garden restaurant, it did have a roof, which brought with it the option for a slatted wood covering should the weather, be particularly inclement.

Needless to say, tonight was a superbly calm evening and we had not a concern about sitting outside. Although the Coralli is a large restaurant (perhaps 150 people) it did not feel too big and it was certainly not impersonal, with the waiters giving warm greetings to everyone but with special attention to those regular diners.

As we had stopped off earlier to check out the menu we received a greeting akin to the regulars, but without the ‘air kissing’ that was reserved for the younger females.

The meal arrived in ‘Greek time’ and my stomach was virtually doing cartwheels in anticipation. However, the lighting around the garden, highlighting the plants distracted me for a while and I did enjoy listening to the background music; nothing loud or too recognizable, just gentle mood setting.

Finally the food arrives and it was well worth the wait. A tin foil packet contained the meat covered with feta cheese and in a beautifully tasty tomato, vegetable, and mushroom sauce all served with carrots (a bit too firm for my liking) beetroot, broccoli, rice, roast potato, and a jacket potato. Words are difficult to find to explain the taste sensation and no photograph on this earth would do the meal justice. In fairness, I somewhat massacred it by tipping the meat out of its parcel onto my plate, but only after I had enjoyed the brilliant blend of herbs that gave off a beautiful aroma.

My wife said little during her meal other than ‘oohs’ and ‘aahh’ and I know she enjoyed it because she only left the bone of the lamb shank in the ceramic bowl. A superb meal!

Parking at the top of a small hill we strolled, following the signposts, to the bottom end of the walk. There is a very small parking area down here if you don’t fancy the walk. To reach the entrance to the valley we had to run the gauntlet of small shops and pass through the courtyard of an old established taverna. Nothing demanded our attention and in fairness the shop owners were fairly laid back and gently pointed out their wares to us. We reached the entrance to the relatively unscathed! We were visiting this unique place a little too early in the season and were told that were only a few butterflies in the valley. However, as the entrance fee was only 3 euros, which also gave us admission to the natural history museum, we decided to make the visit.

It’s a linear walk alongside a narrow stream almost fully enclosed under a tree canopy and crammed with indigenous flora. Certainly it’s a pretty walk, even without butterflies, but you do need to be fairly fit as there are narrow bridges to cross and many steps to climb as you make your way along the length of the uneven track.

The unusual bright, almost incandescent green of several trees showed through the peeling red bark (I presume this was the Storax Tree as I’d never seen the like before) and the odd flutter of wings caused us to stop and closely check out the environment. Apparently the Jersey Tiger Moth in its thousands is attracted by the vanilla scent of the Storax Tree and in another couple of weeks the trees would have been covered by the insects. Still we saw the odd one or two and we managed, despite visiting in the mid-afternoon, to avoid the busloads of tourists. As we were leaving two buses were being decanted into the car park and the peace and serenity of this beautiful walk would surely have been disturbed.

A short walk along the valley took us to the Church of Panagias Kalopetras. It was built in the late 1700s has some beautiful and bright religious paintings and exceptional views across the island. Certainly well worth the walk.

Returning back through the valley we stopped to “take on water” at one of the shops we’d earlier passed by, and then made the short walk to the natural history museum. It sounds “big and impressive” but it’s perhaps one of the smallest museums that we’ve seen. A couple of rooms display “mounted” butterflies and there are some explanatory boards referring to the unique summer sight in Petaloudes when the moths (far less exotic than butterflies!) invade the valley. I have to confess that I found the museum non-inspiring and we whipped through it in less than 5 minutes.

A disappointing visit because we didn’t see the hoards of butterflies that we expected, but if you were to visit later I’m sure the sight is quite fantastic, meanwhile I’ll settle back and imagine!

The ruins of ancient Karemos are on the western side of Rhodes and are well worth a visit. Despite their ruined state (well, they are quite old!), it is not difficult to identify the different living and working accommodation on this really imposing site.

I would think little restoration work has been undertaken and although each building type has a description, you need to let your imagination work a little to get a clearer picture, but I do believe that this is the largest ancient site that I’ve ever seen. There is a modest admission charge to the site (students get in free and pensioners get a reduction) but I reckon it's well worth paying, as the whole of the site rises above you as you pass by the ticket booth. The site was discovered in 1859 and is described as one of the “best preserved classical Greek cities”

At the lowest level there is a sanctuary for the Gods, a small temple, and streets of old Aegean houses. I spent some time trying to imagine the layout, but somewhat lost the plot after a time as I’m sure that these were fairly small residences, akin to one bed-room apartments!

We then headed uphill towards the town’s main temple (The Temple of Athena Polias). You’ll have to have a right good imagination for this as only the footings are remaining but, as with all major temples, this commands the best view of the whole site. The full panorama is breathtaking, but for me the stunning sight was the view downhill over the whole of the ancient town. It was from up here that the town was provided with its water supply through a sophisticated series of pipe works from an absolutely huge water cistern just in front of the temple. I’m guessing that this was a wealthy and influential town in its day and the residents would be fully provided for within its walls.

There was a trading centre and market square (still visible) and the network of ancient streets and alleyways is clearly evidenced from the vantage point at the top of the town—a little bit more confusing when you’re exploring them at closer quarters. Still it’s fun to ascend the ancient staircases and imagine shop owners and local tradesmen in close dialogue with their neighbours.

Splashes of colour from the local flora add interest to this ancient sight and we saw many a lizard basking in the summer sun, that is until we got too close and they scuttled to a crack in the walls and disappeared from view.

Our visit took a good couple of hours and this allowed us to make the climb to the top of the village, explore the ruins in enough detail to satisfy our amateur interest, and generally soak up the atmosphere of this nicely cared-for ancient archaeological site. I’d certainly commend a visit to you.

There were three monasteries fairly close by and we set off with the intention of visiting them all.

The monastery of Tharri is by far the grandest and, if you’re tight on time, this is the one to go for. It’s nicely set in the hills of Rhodes and is hidden from view until you are almost upon it. A large car park points the way to the monastery gates with a small shop to the left selling religious memorabilia, honey, and ouzo made on the premises.

There were no shortage of monks here and, whilst many sat in the shady area around the church, listening to the tales of the ‘main man’, one stood out as being the worker. He was everywhere, hosing down two large outdoor baths, carrying water to the quarters, advising visitors what to wear (mainly the women that they needed to use one of the wraps at the main entrance), extinguishing candles in the church and generally being busy. None of the others stirred, they just sat alongside the ‘chief’ nodding attentively as he ‘held court’.

There are some great views around this 9th century site and inside the church is just covered in religious imagery. Although the monastic use of the site dates back to the 9th century, the current church was completed in the 13th century, and the depictions of biblical stories date to the 16th and 17th centuries. You are asked not too take photos inside the church, but there are few restrictions when you look round the rest of the site. Indeed, we felt totally at ease to wander freely around the grounds and even ended up (by mistake rather than intent) walking through the residential area of this small religious community, before sitting, under the shade of trees, in the small monastic courtyard next to the church. Just soaking up the atmosphere of this busy little monastery, before resuming our tour of the island.

The Monastery of Artemis is once again in a beautiful setting with picturesque views around it. The traditional blue and white church is built in the center of a small courtyard surrounded on three sides by the monastic cells of the monks. This is supposedly a working monastery but everything looked slightly run down and uninhabited. Unlike Tharri, we saw no evidence of a resident community other than the traditional Monastic cats basking in the sunshine.

The Monastery of St. Nicholas has a prime spot with almost perfect 360° views across the island. It was erected by John and Fotis Mastrogiannatsu in celebration of the life of John’s son who was killed in August 1995, aged 21. It was built out of Nikos’ savings and the first mass was held on 17th August, 1986, exactly one year after his death. It is a really small church with modern paintings (bold but one-dimensional) and in the corner a chilling reminder to the life of Nikos in the form of a large portrait.