Rhodes

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Rhodes, an island of the Dodecanese and one of the sunniest in the Mediterranean (300 days of sunshine a year), is nicknamed the Island of the Sun. Its medieval Old Town, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is the best-preserved in Europe: the Palace of the Grand Master, the Street of the Knights and the 4 km ramparts bear witness to its Crusader past. At the other end, the medieval village of Lindos, with its acropolis overlooking a turquoise cove, is one of the most photographed landscapes in Greece. The west coast offers surf beaches (Prasonisi), the east coast calm waters ideal for families.

The Knights' city and the sunniest island in Greece

Rhodes is the largest of the Dodecanese, 1,400 km², lying off the Turkish coast at the far south-east of the Aegean. Its capital is two cities in one: a modern Greek town, and inside four kilometres of medieval walls the old town the Knights of St John built between 1309 and 1522 — the Street of the Knights, the Palace of the Grand Masters, the inns of the different tongues of the order — the best-preserved medieval city in the Mediterranean and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is still inhabited, which is why it feels like a town and not a museum.

The Colossus, one of the Seven Wonders, stood somewhere near the harbour for about fifty years before an earthquake toppled it in 226 BC; nothing of it remains, whatever the souvenir shops suggest. What does remain is Lindos, 50 kilometres south — a white village under an acropolis where a Doric temple of Athena stands on a cliff above two bays — and the Ottoman and Italian layers of Rhodes town, since Italy held the Dodecanese from 1912 to 1943 and rebuilt much of the harbour front.

The island has a broad east coast of long beaches and resorts — Faliraki, Lindos, Tsambika — and a quieter, windier west. Inland are the Valley of the Butterflies, full of tiger moths in summer, and a pine-forested mountain spine that few visitors see.

May to October, avoiding the August furnace

Rhodes claims 300 days of sun a year and the season runs from April to October. May–June and September–October are the months: 25–28 °C, warm sea, the old town walkable in the afternoon. July and August are very hot — regularly above 35 °C inland — and crowded; the wildfires of July 2023, which forced the evacuation of the south-east coast, were in that window. Winter is mild and the old town is close to empty.

Fly in, hire a car for the south

Rhodes Diagoras airport, 15 kilometres from the town, has direct flights from much of Europe in season; ferries link the island to Piraeus (overnight), the Dodecanese and, in summer, Marmaris in Turkey. Greece is EU and Schengen — no formality for EU citizens, euro. Rhodes town and Lindos are walkable; the rest of the island is 80 kilometres long and needs a car or the reliable but slow KTEL buses. Lindos is car-free and steep — arrive early, before the coaches, and the donkeys are not a good idea.

Stay in the old town for atmosphere — the lanes are quiet once the day-trippers leave — or on the east coast for the beaches. Eat pitaroudia (chickpea fritters), grilled fish at Stegna or Haraki, and the island's own wines; the Rhodian honey and the melekouni sesame bars are the things to take home.

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