Rhodes Town - Greece

GREECE

RHOSE

TRAVEL

Rhodes Town - Greece

Friday 12 April 2019

We caught an early morning flight from Gatwick and arrived on the Island of Rhodes at around midday. We only had carry-on luggage, our rucksacks, so we were quick to leave the aircraft and get through passport control but we still managed to miss the bus to Rhodes Town by ten minutes and would have to wait for another fifty minutes for the next one.

The public bus runs every hour from the Airport and costs €2.60 per person. A Taxi would cost around €30 so, of course, we waited.

By the time the bus arrived, there were lots of people waiting to get on it and it seemed almost full as we pulled away from the bus stop. Being a public bus it stopped at every bus stop along the route and somehow, more and more people managed to keep getting on.

It took almost an hour to reach the ‘Bus Station’ which was the end of the route and located in the centre of the modern town. I say ‘Bus Station’ but it is not much more than a small ticket office and some benches.

It was just after 1:00 pm and we had managed, without any issues, to get ourselves to where we needed to be. All we need to do now was start exploring the town while making our way towards the accommodation we had booked. We were on holiday!

Well, one of us was on holiday. I would be working for some of the time but as today was Friday I wouldn’t have to worry about that until Monday so at least we had the weekend to explore Rhodes Town before we moved to another location on the Island.

I didn’t really know much about Rhodes before we went there and, to be honest, I am not sure that I know much more about it now.

I knew that Rhodes was small Island just off the coast of Turkey and, in historical terms, was the location of the Colossus of Rhodes, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World which has long since vanished but that was pretty much the limit of my knowledge.

The truth is that Rhodes isn’t really somewhere I would want to go or be. It is just not my kind of place. Holiday resorts and beaches packed with sun worshipers are just not my thing and even though I loved our road trip around the Greek mainland last year, I would never book a holiday in such a popular resort type destination as Rhodes.

So how did I get here?

Well, last summer Susan booked this holiday planning to go with some members of her family leaving me in the UK to work but as the departure date drew near, for one reason or another, the others were unable to go which would have left Susan going on her own.

Susan suggested that I go with her and work from the Hotel which, at the time, in the cold, wet and windy UK weather, seemed like a great idea.

Better still, I had an EasyJet Customer Service voucher that was due to expire that would more than cover the cost of changing the name on the return flights and, somewhat unexpectedly, Susan also got a refund on all of the taxes for the reaming unused tickets so everything just sort of fell into place.

We shouldered our rucksacks and left the Bus Station. We decided to meander slowly towards our hotel while, at the same time, looking for somewhere to eat.

Being vegetarians, we knew that we would probably end up eating a lot of Greek salad, pizza and bread and we also knew that we would resent paying high prices for the privilege but, luckily, we found a small place called the Space Bar that served a very acceptable vegetable omelette with fries and a beer at a reasonable price and with excellent service.

I have no idea why it was called the Space Bar, there seemed to be no obvious connection or theme that I could see, but as this was only ten minutes from our hotel at least we knew that there would be one place we could eat without having to venture too far from the hotel.

I keep saying ‘Hotel’ but in fact, Susan had found a great little place called Galanopetra which was more of a hostel with private rooms and a central courtyard where breakfast was served. There were plenty of bars, restaurants and shops nearby and it was only a five-minute walk to the beach and a ten-minute walk to the Old Town. The young woman running the place and the owner were really nice people and the breakfast, which was included, was far above our expectations considering the price we were paying.

But, this was April, and the season was only just starting and everywhere was apparently quiet. Which is perfect because I simply would not want to be there when the place is rammed packed and it does get rammed packed!

We were lucky enough to have been there when the beaches were empty and the prices really low but I have seen photos of the place when the beaches are so packed that you can only just about see the sand and for this, you would have to pay a small fortune!

Having checked and dumped our rucksacks in we set off to explore some more of Rhodes Town.

Governor’s Palace, Built in 1927 during the Italian occupation.

Just inside Liberty Gate, The Byzantine fortifications of the medieval town.

David Welch – View Profile

Are you tired of being stuck in the office? Bored of being chained to a desk? Counting down the days until retirement?

Me too!!