Rockin' and rollin' our way to Rhodes

Although we kept extending our stay in Symi for 'just another day' we realized that if we were to get to Rhodes it was time to say goodbye to our new friends and finds and set sail.  Our ship for this trip was the fast-boat Dodekanisos which normally would have whisked us across the 24 kilometers of Agean Sea in an hour.  But we did have a bit of stormy weather -- some said it was the red-dust-blowing Siroco winds from Africa and others said it had changed to the northern winds -- that rocked and rolled our boat like a swing.  They finally dropped the speed a bit but because of our early departure from Symi  we found ourselves at the gates of the medieval city by 9 a.m. Tuesday.

We announced our arrival in this old town as we rattled and clattered our bags through the labyrinth of narrow cobbled streets and alleyways until we happened upon Niki's Hotel where we are now 'at home' in a room that opens on to a garden terrace, up so high that a lemon tree drooping with fruit provides a backdrop to the view.

This 2,500 year Old Town of Rhodes is the largest inhabited medieval town in Europe -- once home to 30,000 some residents it now has 5,000 living within he walls.  We quite literally cross a moat and enter the town through one of its 13 gates to 'get home' after one of our excursions.

The old town is surrounded now by a new town which provides an itneresting juxtaposition:  we can walk one direction and be in a palace  inhabited by the Knights of St. John for some 200 years after their arrival in 1309 or we can walk a few blocks outside the walls and sip a Starbucks coffee. 

The waters that surround Rhodes have got to be some of the most spectacular we've seen; the colors of the sea simply dazzle.