Our yearly Greek trip…

This year the winning ticket was for Rhodes. Taking advantage of a conference here we have reserved a couple of days for holidays. Yesterday it was a real marathon…. After 12 hours of traveling we arrived at Rhodes airport at 6.30 AM, picked up the car and went for to the south to visit Lindos and the Butterfly valley. Of course there was no butterfly there since we are out of the period. On the other side Lindos is quite beautiful village and we recommend it as well as the old acropolis. After the visit we went further south, ate in a small resort were almost everything was closed (the tourist season finished one day before) and the place looked deserted. The locals were packing everything preparing for the winter. After lunch we found a deserted beach and swam a little. The water was not too cold and the beach was empty.

After a little nap, we drove back to the hotel for showers. Finding the hotel was a crazy adventure. In the map it seemed very easy, but real life was not so. Street’s name are not written anywhere, more over they never run straight and hardly anyone has two ways direction. Conclusion: we had to drive all around the city two or three times until we manage to reach the hotel.

In the evening we went for a walk in the old medieval town. It was quite big and streets, dark and empty, kept a faithful medieval atmosphere. We got lost a couple of times till we manage to find the exit to the XXI century, but finally we did. Then, back in the modern town, we got lost again till we found the hotel.

Today we woke up for a complete breakfast: beacon, eggs, sausages, cheese, yogurt, tomato and cucumber. Since we had no diner yesterday we were really hungry in the morning. We decide to go to visit the old medieval town with the sunlight. It was incredible big! (I understand now why we got lost yesterday). It was a fortified city that was 100% preserved, with 6000 people living in it. Inside the walls there was another inner fortification, where the knights of the Order lived, had their hospitals and Inns. Everything was very well conserved and/or restored, so it was easy to imagine the knights living there.

After visiting the city we went to the harbor where the statue of the colossus was suppose to be and later drove along the coast to ancient Camiros. These greeks knew how to live: the old city of Camiros is located in a nice and green forest, but has great views of the Mediterranean sea. The whole city including a sanctuary, many houses, public baths and a huge water reservoir was excavated. At lunch time we decided to go for some fresh fish and octopus to a taverna at the sea side. The afternoon was cool and cloudy and we didn´t manage to find a nice beach to have a swim.

This is the report for the first two days here. We still have the whole week ahead but with the conference we will hardly have the time for tourism….at least during the day.