View from the window when we woke up
We spent all of Wednesday in Rhodes; we went on an excursion in the morning and then explored on our own in the afternoon.
The excursion first took us to the Acropolis of Lindos, which was really beautiful, but a LONG way up! I did not feel at all guilty about the almond cake I had with lunch after walking all those steps. But the view from the top was well worth the hike.
On the way up to the acropolis
another view
The medieval castle just next to the Acropolis of Lindos, to which the only entrance is the million stairs we had to climb. This way, if the people people guarding the castle saw someone coming, they could drop burning sand/boiling water/sharp things onto the intruder.
The Acropolis of Lindos
View from the top
St. John was exiled to Lindos at one point, and lived somewhere in this part, so that little white church is built as a memorial to him
Not sure what this sign says, but you get the general idea
Acropolis/Castle
We also got to wander around the markets near the acropolis, which was nice, until I got ripped off for the second time, when I was really thirsty and decided I'd earned a milkshake after the hike up to the acropolis. It turned out to be basically water with food coloring, which was disgusting and annoying (but I had almond cake later, so it was ok). I was still thirsty so I went to a stand to get a bottle of water where I got ripped off for the THIRD time, when I realized (once we were on the bus and it was too late to do anything) that the water cost fifty cents, which meant I should have gotten two coins back - a one euro coin and a twenty cents coin. I did get two coins back, but one was a 20 cents coin and the other was a fifty cent coin. I was peeved to say the least, especially since I was stupid enough not to check before I left the stand. But it wasn't a huge deal, and I tried not to let stupid people ruin my mood when I was really enjoying the trip.
After the acropolis they took us to an authentic Greek ceramics studio, which was surprisingly cool. It has been run by the same family for about three generations, and now this man hand makes the ceramics (which he demonstrated and wowed us all), and his wife and sister paint them in the traditional Greek styles. I bought a few things and miraculously they all survived the trip home.
Making a vase (it took him about 2 minutes to make that)
making it pretty (they signed the things I bought and wrote something in Greek for me on the one I got as a present for someone)
Rhodes is a pretty interesting place, because of the mix of time periods all in once. There were Greek, Byzantine, and Ottoman remains throughout the city, mixed with modern. We had a really nice day exploring it! There were also really nice beaches, but it was still too chilly to enjoy it, so we just put our feet in the water for a bit before running back to the ship.
One of the moats from the medieval castle, that has now been turned into a little park
Mosque from the Ottoman Empire
Pretty statue-thing on the beach near our ship (sadly we did not see any dolphins)
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