Rhodes tours take travellers to the largest island of the Dodecanese, where a walled Old Town of the Knights stands above a harbour at the northern tip. For more routes, see our tours in Greece page.
This page covers what Rhodes tours include, how the island is reached, the Medieval City and the Palace of the Grand Master, the Knights, Mandraki harbour, Lindos, the beaches, Kamiros, Filerimos and Ialysos, the villages, the islands and Marmaris, the seasons, and where travellers stay.
What do Rhodes tours include?
Rhodes tours are coach, boat and walking trips around the largest island of the Dodecanese. Local operators run full-day excursions, private tours, boat trips and off-road safaris. The stops range from the Old Town and Lindos to neighbouring islands.
Operators sort their trips into plain groups. One tour agency lists group excursions, boat trips and private tours. Another menu names coach tours, experiences and private transfers. A third lists one full-day island excursion as a mix of boat, coach and walking. The same menu adds bike, hiking and sea kayaking tours.
One travel site lists six day trips on Rhodes. They are two off-road safaris, an island tour with wine tasting, and full-day cruises to Lindos, Symi and Halki. It says the northern safari keeps groups small, at up to six people per vehicle. These Rhodes tours fill a whole day, by road or by sea.
The stops follow the map of the island. One operator’s destination menu names Lindos, Filerimos, Monolithos, Prasonisi, Seven Springs, Butterfly Valley, Symi, Halki, Kastellorizo and Marmaris. The Rhodes photo gallery shows these places in pictures before you pick a day.
Rhodes tours cover the biggest island of the Dodecanese, says Wikipedia, which ranks it ninth by size among Mediterranean islands. From end to end it measures 79.7 kilometres, with a width of 38 kilometres at the broadest point. The article sets the area near 1,400 square kilometres and the coast near 220 kilometres. Its population is 125,113.
Wikipedia adds that the land area exceeds the other Dodecanese islands combined by a wide margin. On the list above, each trip picks one part of the island. Those parts are the north, the south, the west coast and the east coast by sea. Wikipedia describes the interior as mountainous, with forests of pine and cypress.
Turkey’s southern coast lies 18 kilometres from Rhodes, Wikipedia says. It locates the island to the southeast of Athens and northeast of Crete. Rhodes tours also cross that short gap, as one listing offers a day trip to the Turkish coast. Our page on Greek island destinations shows other islands to visit.
How do Rhodes tours reach the island?
Rhodes tours start after you land at Rhodes International Airport or dock at a harbour of Rhodes Town. The Greek mainland is 363 kilometres away, Wikipedia says, so travellers arrive by plane or by boat.
Air arrivals for Rhodes tours land at Rhodes International Airport, called Diagoras. It stands on the west coast, north of the village of Paradeisi. Wikipedia puts it about 14 kilometres southwest of Rhodes Town. The article ranks it fourth in Greece by passenger numbers and calls it the main way into the island.
Wikipedia says the airport links to the other major Greek airports and to Cyprus throughout the year. In the tourist season, international flights add European cities, Israel, Egypt and Lebanon. A municipal bus network joins the town centre to the airport and the outlying resorts. Our general information about Rhodes covers the practical side of arrival.
Wikipedia lists five ports on Rhodes: three in Rhodes Town, one near Kamiros and one near Lardos. In the town, Kolona handles the boats that run between Dodecanese islands. Central is the port for cruise ships and international sailings, and Akandia takes domestic and freight sailings. Central also takes the regular crossings to Turkey.
Wikipedia says ferries link Rhodes with nearby Dodecanese islands, the Cyclades, Piraeus and Heraklion on Crete. It adds that cruise boats begin day trips to Symi and down the east coast to Lindos at Mandraki Port. Rhodes tours by sea follow the same routes.
Wikipedia also calls Rhodes a popular stop on cruise routes, above all in summer. One operator’s blog pairs a Rhodes shore excursion with a trip to Symi. The town also has two marinas, one at Mandraki and one beside Akandia. Our Greek islands cruises page covers the sea routes.
What do Rhodes tours show in the Medieval City of Rhodes?
Rhodes tours cover the Medieval City of Rhodes, a town that UNESCO lists as a World Heritage Site. Wikipedia says a wall four kilometres long encloses it, and the Knights Hospitaller built its high town entirely.
Operator listings for Rhodes tours describe walking, Segway and e-bike routes through the Old Town. The walls around it set the scene. Wikipedia describes them as a stone-faced embankment with bastions and a moat, plus a crenellated wall along the harbour. The Knights enhanced older Byzantine walls from the year they took the island.
Wikipedia counts eleven gates into the old city. The Knights shared the defence among their langues, also called tongues. The Grand Master held the north face. Moving west and south, the posts went to France with Auvergne, then Spain, Germany and Italy. Today a bastion still bears the name of Italy. The article lists the walls as largely intact.
Wikipedia lists the Street of the Knights among the main sights of Rhodes city, a natural stop on Rhodes tours. One travel site puts the street at about two hundred metres. It climbs from the old hospital of the Knights to the Grand Master’s palace. Wikipedia adds that the Italian authorities had the street rebuilt.
Inside the old hospital building sits the Archaeological Museum of Rhodes. Construction began in the fifteenth century and reached completion in Grand Master d’Aubusson’s time, says Wikipedia. The museum shows finds from Rhodes and nearby islands, among them the Crouching Aphrodite and the Head of Helios. Wikivoyage says the exhibits fill mainly the upper floor.
The Mosque of Suleiman the Magnificent is another sight on Wikipedia’s list. It is a stop for Rhodes tours of the Ottoman period. Wikipedia calls it the leading surviving Ottoman-era monument in Rhodes. Inside, three domed chambers form the prayer hall, and the marble doorway came from a Knights Hospitaller tomb monument.
What do Rhodes tours show at the Palace of the Grand Master?
Rhodes tours show a castle from the Middle Ages. The Knights Hospitaller used it as palace, headquarters and fortress. Wikipedia says an explosion destroyed much of it in the nineteenth century. Italian rule brought a rebuild in the twentieth.
Wikipedia also calls it the Kastello, from the Italian word for castle. It counts the palace among the rare Gothic buildings in Greece. The site began as a Byzantine citadel in the late seventh century. The Knights Hospitaller took Rhodes and made the fortress their administrative base and the home of their Grand Master.
Rhodes tours visit a palace that was damaged more than once. An earthquake hit it in the fifteenth century, and it was repaired soon afterwards. The Ottomans, once they held the island, used the building as a base of command and a fortress.
In the nineteenth century lightning hit a gunpowder store beneath the Church of Saint John next door. Wikipedia says the blast caused heavy loss of life and destroyed the church. It also destroyed much of the palace. The upper floors largely collapsed, but the ground-floor rooms survived.
During Italian rule the authorities demolished the Ottoman-era structures. Wikipedia says the architect Vittorio Mesturino designed the rebuilding, and the works ran from nineteen thirty-seven to nineteen forty. Critics fault the result for its lack of historical accuracy. So the palace on Rhodes tours today is a reconstruction on the old site.
Italy’s king, Victor Emmanuel III, used the castle as a holiday home, and so did the dictator Benito Mussolini later. Mussolini’s name still appears on a big plaque by the entrance. The palace became a museum after the Dodecanese islands were handed to Greece in the late nineteen-forties.
One listing for palace tickets calls it the island’s leading monument of medieval history. Wikipedia adds that European Economic Community leaders held a meeting in the palace in the late nineteen-eighties.
What does the history of the Knights add to Rhodes tours?
The Knights Hospitaller ruled Rhodes for two centuries. Their rule gives Rhodes tours a medieval core of walls, a harbour and a siege story. Wikipedia lists the island as the order’s headquarters from the early fourteenth century until the year fifteen twenty-two. The order later settled on Malta, and the full name of its successor still includes Rhodes.
The order began in the Kingdom of Jerusalem in the twelfth century. After it lost Acre, the last crusader stronghold in Palestine, it sought refuge on Cyprus. Its master next chose Rhodes, then part of the Byzantine Empire, as a domain of its own. Wikipedia says the city surrendered on 15 August, following a campaign that ran over four years.
Rhodes tours show how those knights built their city for war. Wikipedia says they hired Italian engineers to plan defences against gunpowder attacks. The defences beat back an attack by the Sultan of Egypt and then the first Ottoman siege. After that siege and an earthquake, the knights thickened the main wall and doubled the width of the dry ditch.
The second Ottoman siege ended the knights’ rule on Rhodes. Wikipedia says 400 ships landed 100,000 men under Sultan Suleiman. The knights’ Grand Master, Villiers de L’Isle-Adam, had about 7,000 men-at-arms. On 4 September two mines opened a breach at the bastion of England, and a counterattack drove the attackers back. The siege lasted six months, ending in December.
The knights left on generous terms, with twelve days to go and their weapons, valuables and icons. Rhodes then stayed Ottoman for nearly four centuries. Wikipedia says those years added mosques, public baths and mansions. Italy took the island next, and the Italians preserved what was left of the Knights’ period. Rhodes tours cover all three layers of that past.
What do Rhodes tours show at Mandraki harbour?
Mandraki served the Knights of Rhodes as their military port. On Rhodes tours the waterfront gives a medieval fort, a lost statue and an Italian town plan. Wikipedia says the Knights guarded it with a tower built in the fifteenth century on its natural mole. Wikipedia adds that the city keeps its municipal marina in downtown Mandraki.
Wikipedia says Grand Master Zacosta built a tower out on the tip of the natural mole. Grand Master d’Aubusson added a bastion after the first Ottoman siege and made it a guard fortress on the sea. It is now the Fortress of St Nicholas, near the harbour entrance. The harbour mole first carried 13 windmills, and only one is left.
Rhodes tours also meet the Italian town planned around Mandraki in the early twentieth century. Wikipedia says the architect Florestano Di Fausto designed it as a Garden City. Along the sea promenade he placed the governor’s palace, a market and a cathedral. The article calls the style eclectic, blending Venetian, Renaissance, Ottoman and local touches.
The Colossus honoured Helios, the Greek sun god, and counts among the ancient world’s seven wonders. Chares of Lindos erected it in 280 BC to celebrate the defence of Rhodes against Demetrius I of Macedon. It measured about 70 cubits, or 33 metres. In 226 BC an earthquake toppled it. The Rhodians never rebuilt the statue.
Rhodes tours cannot show the statue, only a debate that Wikipedia says is still open about its place. Scholars find no basis for the old picture of it straddling the harbour mouth. Local tradition puts it where two pillars stand at the Mandraki port entrance. Archaeologist Ursula Vedder instead places it on the Acropolis of Rhodes, above the port.
What do Rhodes tours show in Lindos?
Rhodes tours show Lindos, a fishing village about 40 km from Rhodes Town, on the east coast. A hilltop acropolis above it carries ruins of an Athena temple and of a Knights’ castle.
Any of the Rhodes tours that stop at Lindos meet one of three important Dorian cities of the island. Wikipedia names the other two as Ialysus and Camirus. It adds that the island itself was also called Lindos. Cleobulus, a sixth-century B.C. ruler of Lindos, ranks among the Seven Sages of Greece.
Eastern Rhodes was a natural meeting place of Greeks and Phoenicians. By the eighth century B.C. Lindos was a major trading centre. After the three cities joined in 408 B.C. and built a new capital at the northern end, Lindos declined. The acropolis is a natural citadel, fortified in turn by Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, the Knights and Ottomans.
On a full-day cruise among Rhodes tours, one listing allows three hours ashore. In that time you can walk the whitewashed lanes, climb to the acropolis or swim at a sandy beach below. Wikipedia adds that the acropolis has views of the surrounding harbours and coastline. Across the bay from Lindos lies the small resort of Charaki.
Danish archaeologists from the Carlsberg Institute dug the acropolis down to bedrock early in the twentieth century. Every building’s foundations came to light. Major restoration followed under Italian rule, and Wikipedia calls it poorly done. Greek and international teams now work to protect the ancient buildings.
Beside the foot of the steps, a rock relief shows a Rhodian warship made about 180 B.C. Higher up, the Knights of St John put up a fortress in the fourteenth century. Wikipedia says it was meant to shield the island from the Ottomans. For a road route, see the Lindos and Seven Springs bus tour from Rhodes.
Which beaches do Rhodes tours stop at?
Rhodes tours stop at Faliraki, Afantou and Tsambika on the east coast, and at Prasonisi on the south cape. Wikipedia and the tour listings name each place, from a 5 km stretch of sand to a windsurfing cape.
Faliraki lies on the northeast coast. Wikipedia puts it 14 km south of Rhodes Town. It calls Faliraki the primary seaside resort village of the island. It lists a 5 km stretch of sand and 12 Blue Flags. Day cruisers leave its fishing harbour for Lindos and the beaches, so Rhodes tours by sea can start there.
One full-day cruise listing sails south along the east coast of Rhodes. Its first stop is a swim at Anthony Quinn Bay. Its last is a swim at Tsambika beach on the return to Rhodes Town. Boats reach these bays from the sea, as on the Rhodes all-inclusive catamaran cruise.
One beach cruise listing visits Anthony Quinn Bay, Tsambika beach and Afantou beach. Rhodes tours by boat can reach Afantou from the water. Wikipedia places the village just south of Faliraki. The island’s single golf course lies in Afantou, beside one of the longest beaches on Rhodes. Wikipedia counts the resort of Kolympia among its settlements.
Prasonisi is the cape at the south end of Rhodes. From Lindos it is 40 km to Prasonisi, and from Rhodes Town 92 km, Wikipedia says. The name means green island in Greek. At low water in summer, a sandy tombolo links the cape to Rhodes as a peninsula. At high water in winter it turns into an island.
The destination list of one site selling Rhodes tours includes Prasonisi. The Aegean side has waves for advanced surfers, and the Mediterranean side has flat water for beginners. Wikipedia names predictable, reliable winds as the draw for windsurfing and kitesurfing. A lighthouse stands on the southernmost tip.
What do Rhodes tours show at ancient Kamiros?
Rhodes tours stop at ancient Kamiros, a city the Dorians founded on the island’s northwest coast. The city was built on a hill in three levels. Wikipedia says the modern village of Kalavarda lies three kilometres east of the site.
The acropolis is the high point of the site for Rhodes tours. It stood at the top of the hill. Wikipedia names a temple complex of Athena Kameiras there. Its foundations began at least as early as the eighth century BC. A stoa stood there too, with two rows of Doric columns and rooms for shops or lodgings.
The stoa was built over an older covered reservoir. Its volume was 600 cubic metres, which Wikipedia calls enough for up to 400 families. The article dates the reservoir to about the sixth century BC.
Rhodes tours meet three levels at Kamiros. The middle terrace held the main settlement, with parallel streets in a grid and blocks of homes between them. On the lower terrace Wikipedia lists a Doric temple, probably to Apollo. The Fountain House stands there with the Agora in front of it. The Peribolos of the Altars held dedications to deities.
In 226 BC a quake destroyed both the city and the temple. A second quake, in 142 AD, ruined the city again. Alfred Biliotti and Auguste Salzmann excavated the acropolis in the nineteenth century. Finds from their digs are now in the British Museum in London.
Rhodes tours of the west coast give Kamiros a place on the route. One full-day listing begins there and names it among the island’s three great Dorian cities. It describes ruins spread across three terraced levels above the sea. The route then continues to a castle and a wine village.
What do Rhodes tours show on Filerimos hill and in Ialysos?
Rhodes tours visit Filerimos hill, the site of the ancient acropolis of Ialysos. Wikipedia places the modern town of Ialysos on the northwestern coast, eight kilometres west of Rhodes Town. Its population is about 13,000.
Ialysos ranks second among the island’s towns by size. Wikipedia says it was a village until the middle of the nineteen-eighties. It then grew into a suburban district of Rhodes Town. The article calls the coast here a noted location for wind-surfing.
Rhodes tours list Filerimos as a stop of its own. One listing offers a half-day tour to the hill. The hill carried the acropolis of ancient Ialysos. Wikipedia names Ialysus as one of the three ancient Doric cities on the island.
One article dates the remains of a temple of Athena on the hill to the third and second centuries BC. It says Athena was worshipped there as Athena Polias, protectress of the city. A three-aisled Christian basilica later covered the temple. Only its baptistry, dated to the fifth and sixth centuries AD, remains.
A travel portal says the Monastery of Panagia Filerimos and a medieval church were built here in the Frankish period. Its icon, said to be painted by Saint Luke, was the holiest relic of the Knights. Italians heavily restored the monastery during their occupation of the island.
The Via Crucis, also called the Via Dolorosa or Way of the Cross, is a path on the hill. The travel portal places it in the southwest and says Latin priests built it to represent the steps up Golgotha. It ends at a small square with a cross in the middle.
The Valley of the Butterflies is Petaloudes in Greek. Wikipedia says the valley is home to thousands of moths, a Jersey tiger subspecies found on Rhodes. In late spring, after the wet season, they blanket the valley, because the humidity there is high. Oriental sweetgum trees give off a scent that attracts them.
The article on Rhodes says large numbers of tiger moths gather in the summer months. Wikipedia adds that the moths have no stomach and, when disturbed, tend to fly frequently and use up their energy. One listing for Rhodes tours pairs Mount Filerimos and its hilltop monastery with the Butterfly Valley.
What do Rhodes tours show in the villages of the west and south?
Rhodes tours reach three villages of the municipal unit of Attavyros: Embonas, Kritinia and Monolithos. Embonas is a wine village and Kritinia has a castle. Monolithos has a Knights’ fortress on a solitary rock above the sea.
Embonas is a mountain village and the seat of the municipal unit. Wikipedia names it as the hub of wine making on the island. One listing for a full-day tour of the west coast includes wine and olive oil tasting in Embona. Lunch follows at a local taverna.
A stop at Embonas on Rhodes tours puts travellers halfway up Mount Attavyros, the highest mountain on the island. It rises to 1,215 m. Pine and cypress forest covers the lower slopes, and Wikipedia lists deer and the Rhodes badger among its mammals. Remains of a sanctuary of Zeus lie near the summit.
The name Kritinia means New Crete, after the Cretan families who founded it under Ottoman rule. The castle above the village, built in the fifteenth century, shielded the villagers from Ottoman fleets. Wikipedia puts the village 51 km from the town of Rhodes, so car hire is one way to reach it.
Monolithos takes its name from its castle. Wikipedia says the Knights Hospitaller built it in the fifteenth century on a solitary rock 100 m high. It gives the purpose as defence against attacks on the island. One listing for a 4×4 safari on southern Rhodes tours reaches the castle and ends with lunch in the village.
Archangelos sits on the east coast, about 30 km south of the town of Rhodes. Four towns on the island have more people, says Wikipedia. It adds that pottery has long been a main trade, beside olive oil and citrus fruits. Ruins of the castle of Saint John, a Knights’ fortress, stand on a nearby hill.
Which islands do Rhodes tours reach from Rhodes?
Rhodes tours cross the sea to Symi and Halki, and reach Kastellorizo and Marmaris farther out. Wikipedia places Halki about 9 km west of Rhodes and puts Symi roughly 24 km north.
The harbour town of Symi has a lower part, Gialos, around the port and an upper part, Ano Symi. Sponges brought much of the island’s wealth, says Wikipedia. A great number of the neoclassical mansions above the harbour date from the mid nineteenth century. The Symi day trip from Rhodes post covers a full day there.
Rhodes tours to Symi are boat trips. One listing gives the crossing as around an hour and a half. Another lists a fast boat at an hour and a quarter. The route on the first listing stops at Panormitis Bay. On the waterfront there sits the Monastery of the Archangel Michael, with two museums inside.
Halki covers 28 square kilometres, says Wikipedia. One listing for a full-day cruise says the island has almost no vehicles and a harbour lined with neoclassical mansions. It adds that UNESCO calls Halki the Island of Peace and Friendship. Wikipedia notes that the little port of Kameiros Skala on Rhodes has a ferry service to Halki.
Of the islands on Rhodes tours, Kastellorizo lies farthest east. Wikipedia measures 125 km east from Rhodes, and the Turkish coast lies only 2 km from the island. Tilos sits halfway between Kos and Rhodes and has 746 residents. Its Charkadio cave held the remains of a dwarf elephant species.
Rhodes tours also reach Turkey. The Turkish port of Marmaris is also a seaside resort on the Mediterranean. Wikipedia lists ferries from Marmaris to Rhodes and Symi and adds day trips to both in summer. One listing offers the trip the other way, from Rhodes to Marmaris.
When do Rhodes tours run through the year?
One tour listing puts the visiting season between late spring and early autumn, with sunny weather and warm water. Wikipedia says Rhodes has mild winters and hot summers under a Mediterranean climate, which frames the year for Rhodes tours. This section follows the year through weather and wind, from the shoulder months to the windy peak of high summer.
Summer in the Aegean belongs to the meltemi, a wind that is strong, dry and northerly. Wikipedia says it blows periodically, beginning in late spring and lasting to mid-September. The climate article adds that July and August see the wind at its peak frequency. Wikipedia calls it a dominant weather influence, and the Greek root of its name means year.
Boat days on Rhodes tours share the water with that wind. Wikipedia says it peaks in the afternoon and arrives under clear skies with no warning at all. That makes it a real danger to sailors at sea, the article adds. The Beaufort scale rates it as high as 7 to 8, and spells can run for days on end.
Heat comes with the wind in summer. Wikipedia gives Lindos the island’s highest recorded temperature, 43.6 °C, and the warmest annual average in Greece, 22 °C. It also says the northerly winds soften the summer heat and leave Aegean temperatures cooler than on the mainland. Rhodes tours in July and August meet both the wind and the full summer heat.
Crowds follow the season here. In the city, Wikipedia estimates 65,000 to 70,000 residents all year, and says the number reaches 100,000 in summer. One tour listing says the shoulder months, late spring and September, tend to be less crowded. It adds that sightseeing and swimming stay good. The Lindos article adds that rain falls mostly in the winter months.
Where do travellers stay between Rhodes tours?
Travellers between Rhodes tours choose among Rhodes Town, Faliraki, Ixia, Kolymbia and Lindos, each on its own stretch of coast. Wikipedia calls each one a resort or a tourist destination, spread along the north, east and west of the island. Rhodes Town stands at the northern tip, while Lindos is about 40 km farther along the east side.
Between Rhodes tours, a base in the city keeps sights close. One tour listing says the main town has key attractions within walking distance. Wikipedia says traffic jams are common in summer, and parking spots around the old town are limited. City buses link the centre with Faliraki in the east and with Ixia, Ialysos and Tholos in the west.
Faliraki sits on Faliraki Bay, part of the municipal unit Kallithea, about 10 km southeast of the airport, Wikipedia says. It is a base for the beach side of the island. Ixia, a new settlement between Ialysos and the city, holds hotels and resorts on the coast. The Ialysos article calls the north-western coast a noted spot for wind-surfing.
- Start with the main page for hotels on Rhodes, which covers the whole island.
- For the upper class of rooms, open deluxe hotels on Rhodes.
- Next down the ladder sits first-class hotels on Rhodes, a page of its own.
- B class hotels on Rhodes sits one level below the first-class page.
- Finally in the class list, C class hotels on Rhodes closes the set.
- Anyone who prefers a flat to a hotel room can open apartments and studios on Rhodes.
- One page describes a hotel at Faliraki, the resort south of the city.
- In the city itself, a hotel in Rhodes Town is covered on its own page.
- The city also has another hotel in Rhodes Town with a separate page.
- Compare the two above with a third hotel in Rhodes Town before you decide on the city.
- On the north-western coast, a hotel at Ixia has its own page.
- The Ixia area continues with a second hotel at Ixia, again on its own page.
- Still at Ixia, there is a third hotel at Ixia if you want to compare.
- Last in this area comes a fourth hotel at Ixia, with details on its own page.
- Our last entry, one more hotel page on the island, completes the set.
On the east coast, Kolymbia and Lindos both give travellers a base between Rhodes tours. Wikipedia spells it Kolympia and counts the resort among the settlements of Afantou, the unit south of Faliraki. Charaki, a small resort and fishing village, faces Lindos across its large bay. Wikipedia says the fine beaches of Lindos draw tourists and holidaymakers to the village.
Wikipedia estimates the average stay on the island at eight days. One listing of Rhodes tours says three to five days is enough time for the medieval town and the beaches. It adds room for a day trip or two to nearby sights or islands. Wikipedia adds that the island’s roads start in the city and follow both coasts.
What else do travellers ask about Rhodes tours?
Why is the island called Rhodes?
Wikipedia says the ancient Greek word rhódon meant rose, and it sounds close to the island’s Greek name, Ródos. In Pindar’s ode the island is said to be born of Helios, the sun god, and the nymph Rhodos. Another idea ties the name to erod, the Phoenician word for snake, since snakes lived there in antiquity.
Wikipedia gives three nicknames: Island of the Sun, Island of the Knights and Pearl Island. In Italian the island is Rodi, and in Turkish it is Rodos. The article adds that the rhoda, a pink hibiscus, is native to the island.
What does the word Dodecanese mean?
The Greek name Dodekánisa means twelve islands, yet Wikipedia counts 15 larger islands in the group. In all, 26 of its islands are inhabited. The chain sits in the southeast corner of the Aegean, close to the Anatolian shore. Wikipedia says Turkey lies to its east, Crete to its southwest and the Cyclades to its west.
Rhodes tours cover the dominant island of the chain, a role Wikipedia says it has held since antiquity. Kos and Patmos carry the greatest historic weight after it, the article says. In Byzantine times the name belonged to twelve Cyclades islands around Delos.
Which local food and drink go with Rhodes tours?
Wikipedia calls the island’s cooking tradition rich. Its two main alcoholic drinks are koriantolino and souma, a colourless drink made from distilled grapes. Stockbreeding, fishery and winery are among the island’s industries, the article adds.
Local foods on its list include lakani, goat meat with chickpeas, and amygdalota, white almond cookies. Synoro is a traditional cheese, and matsi is a hand-made pasta. One small-group trip among Rhodes tours pairs the Butterfly Valley with a wine, olive oil and honey tasting.
Is there a Jewish quarter to add to Rhodes tours?
La Juderia, the Jewish quarter, lies in the old town of Rhodes, Wikipedia says. Kahal Shalom Synagogue stands there, and no other synagogue in Greece is older. Local stones in black and white form its mosaic floor.
The Jewish community of Rhodes goes back 2,300 years, Wikipedia adds. At its peak in the nineteen-twenties, it made up one-third of the town’s people. The Jewish Museum of Rhodes was set up to preserve that history and culture. To add the quarter to Rhodes tours, ask us about a trip to Rhodes.
How is Rhodes divided into towns and villages?
Wikipedia counts 43 towns and villages on the island that Rhodes tours cover. It calls the economy tourist-oriented, with service as the leading sector. Among the islands of the South Aegean Region, Rhodes has the biggest population. The city of Rhodes once served as capital of the old Dodecanese Prefecture.
Wikipedia says the present municipality was formed by merging ten former municipalities, now called municipal units. Archangelos, Ialysos, Lindos and Petaloudes are four of them. Embonas sits in Attavyros, and Kalavarda sits in Kameiros. The municipality also covers the island’s uninhabited offshore islets.