Trip to Lindos

Our second car hire involved a trip to the lovely town of Lindos with Joan and Ben Gibson.  A visit to Lindos is the highlight of a holiday in Rhodes.  The location of the town below the acropolis built on a steep rock 116 metres high, with Lindos Beach at the foot of the town, is a wonderful spectacle.  The dramatic natural landscape is enhanced by the picturesque quality of the more modern town lying at the foot of the castle.

The first sight on the trip was yet another attractive church.  The best things about religion is the architecture and the music they say.  I cannot resist a good looking church.

Then we stumbled across the Monastery of Panagia Tsambika which has the marvelous black and white pebbles of inlaid paving that is a specialty of this area.  The pebbles, carefully laid out in a herring-bone pattern, are right through the courtyard and also on the floor of the church in the monastery.

Another elaborate design complementing its surroundings perfectly in the monastery courtyard.

The tranquil monastery courtyard.  Every monastery we visited had a lovely courtyard.  These monks knew how to relax and enjoy the isolation.

Unfortunately we did not visit the tiny Byzantine church located on top of the hill opposite the monastery.  The view is supposed to be quite breathtaking.  I had not done my research very thoroughly and we did not know that the Tsambika Monastery, or the church on the top of the hill, were such a worthwhile spots to visit.

Our first view of Lindos with a spectacular view of the town.

A panorama shot of the approach to the town and the acropolis.

Diamond Bridge is highly recommended

I know that Mike Swanson and his friendly and capable off-sider Carol Yates, get quite a few takers on their cruises, but so far we, and our friends Mairi and Brian Fitzsimons from New Zealand, are the only bridge players form the Antipodes to attend their wonderful wonderful September-October bridge holiday.  The rest of the crowd are friendly Brits and Scots and they all play Acol.

Carol and Mike hold several cocktail parties with several themes and here are some photos as a result.

It is obvious that we are both having a wonderful time.  I highly recommend Diamond Bridge holidays.  Carol and Mike get excellent rates at 5 star resorts and the bridge is most enjoyable.

Symi excursion

We, and hundreds of others, took a ferry excursion to Symi which is one of the smaller islands in the Dodecanese group.  It is an amazingly popular destination for day trippers.  Big ferries capable of holding 1000 people keep arriving during the day, spawning out eager day trippers.  Symi is just 9 kms off the Turkish coast and north of Rhodes.  We would like to have taken a day trip to Turkey as well but the long wait at immigration desks which we have faced often during this trip put us off.

Symi is known as the prettiest port in Greece.

Colourful neoclassical houses in every shade of apricot and peach line the port.  The colours here and in Rhodes as well are not the traditional blue and white seen in the Cyclades.  Rhodes colours are a brownish red and Symi houses are pinkish.  The town was built by 19 century sponge and spice merchants and it has remained a prosperous island.

A fisherman tending his nets.

You see cats everywhere in Greece.  They all seem to be in good shape and hang around restaurant tables in an orderly and dignified manner.  They do not beg or bother people but pounce gratefully on tid bits that inevitably fall their way.

Sponge shop.  There are an infinite variety of sponges used for all sorts of purposes.  Some are exfoliants, others are for asthma and various skin conditions.  As I said the town was founded on the lucrative sponge trade last century.

At first I thought these were strings of garlic.  They are strings of small sponges.

The fun loving sponge shopkeeper put the larger sponges next to Andrew and called him elephant ears.

On the southwest coast of Symi is the 18th century Monastery of the Archangel Michael Panormitis, a major Greek Orthodox pilgrimage site with a Byzantine museum.

This gracefully gliding sail boat reminded us both of our lovely 10 day sailing holiday last year around the Cyclades.  Ah Greece, my heart is always full when I am there or thinking of Greece.  In spite of all the travel I have done, the Greek islands remain one of my favourite spots.   All the islands are a little different from each other but they are all welcoming and beautiful.

Some of our daily activities

Nikki is a regular at aqua aerobics, taken by the diminutive, shapely Hungarian young girl.

Always ending with a mutual massage.  One day I had the immense good fortune to be next to a Danish masseuse which was a highlight of my day.

Daily stretch class also led by Csenge.

Breakfast on the sunny terrace is a wonderful start to our day.

My favourite omelette maker.  There are three but she makes the best one.

One of my favourites - smoked fish of various kinds.

Not to mention the crispy bacon.  Another favourite.  In fact, I like breakfast the best, more than the dinners which are also smorgasbord style and the dishes are temptingly lined up.

Andrew's attempts to stretch the pressure stockings I bought in Athens after getting terribly swollen feet and ankles on the way here.  The stockings were sold to me at a chemist shop as extra large, but who knows, the package was all Greek to me, and the stockings are dreadfully tight.  We are attempting to stretch them to make them wearable for the homeward journey but I am not hopeful.
I think the Greek chemist lied to me.

Thanks to the extreme kindness of Paul Mollison, my pressure hose problem is solved.  He gave me his and his 6'4" frame and his long legs are really good for me as these now come up to above my knees which is recommended.  And they are also black and look quite sexy! :-) :-)  Paul you are a marvel.

Dennis Loynes is one of the bridge players here.  And he is also an author and I have his book to read on the plane going home.  Not often you play against someone whose novel you are about to read.

Driving around Rhodes

We reverted to habit and hired a car for the day, and shared the pleasure and the costs with Paul and Val Mollison, our team mates for one of the two team events at this Diamond Bridge holiday.  We drove around the western and northern part of the island.  We plan to do this again later on in the week with the Gibsons, this time visiting the eastern coast including Lindos town.

Kritinia Castle.  A key strategic fortress built by the Knights of the Order of St John originally on three levels.

There are a few islands around Rhodes and these are two uninhabited ones.  They are so picturesque that I had to take a photo.  Later on this week we are taking a ferry ride to a reputedly beautiful inhabited island, Symi.

The winding roads through Rhodes are dotted with lovely little villages, all with their village church.  Here is the one at Monolithos.

A view of the sweeping beach, yet again on this trip.  Almost every country we have visited has these wonderful sweeping beach panoramas and I keep taking photo after photo, never tiring of the view.

Monolithos Castle.  It too was built by the Knights around 1480 in order to protect the island from attacks.  The climb up to it is quite gentle but slippery due to the number of visitors wearing them away, with great rewarding views at the top.

The remains of the old chapel which is not all that photograph-worthy but must be included so the next two photos can be fully appreciated.  The breathtaking views of the Aegean Sea and the numerous islets off the western Rhodes coast is the best thing about this visit.

A couple of shots through the rear of the old chapel.

And again from the side.

Paul and Val in front of the whitewashed church at the top.

Lunch at Issidoros where we had a very funny discussion about the sardines I ordered which were anchovies.   It was an amazingly Basil Fawlty episode. I said to the proprietor, a genial and friendly Greek, that whilst my dish was very nice they were anchovies not sardines.  He said they were sardines but some sardines were small and some were bigger and these were small sardines and that he had the packet to show me.  I did not want to be confrontational about it but I muttered after he left the table saying they were anchovies.  He returned to show me the packet which clearly had written anchovies. "See" he said "they are sardines"..  I could not argue with that Greek logic :-)

We then drove through and stopped at a small village called Eleoussa where there was this wonderful old abandoned building.

The Juliet style balconies were very attractive..  No idea what this building once was.  There were no signs but the village had a lovely oblong square with this old building taking up one side and a church at one end and another rather imposing civic-looking building at the other end.

Our last stop was at the Valley of the Butterflies but sadly the butterfly season, which lasts until late September, was over.  Not a single butterfly was to be seen but the walk is very nice.