Greek Island Holiday: City of Rhodos (9/8/1983)

Wednesday, September 7, 1983

Up at 8:00 to go to breakfast, this time with cheese again. Marsha Cotter and I sat by the window for a view out on the sea. We were on the beach by 9:00 and took our air mattress tour to see the beautiful people on the Paradise Hotel beach. There was a guy teaching windsurfing out in the water. Went in for lunch at 12:30. We were wondering if it were possible to be served faster, when lo and behold, they served us everything at once! We chose grapefruit juice, but got orange Tang. We had chicken American style (it was roasted with a cream of chicken sauce) with French fries and a dough-covered deep fried tomato. Also a potato salad. For dessert I had chocolate pudding and Marsha had chocolate and vanilla ice cream. We were back out on the beach at 13:15! We came back in at 17:00 to shower and get ready for the “vacations info show” at 18:00. We went down to the breakfast room, passing the chained dining room. An old lady was in the dining room, and I undid the chain to let her out. In the breakfast room we were given a glass of champagne, and we sat to one side near rows of chairs. Up front we saw a mattress with a lambskin cover and a robe of the same material. A vacation demonstration? It turned out to be a sales demonstration during your vacation, since advertising costs hundreds of thousands of Deutschmarks, and it was easier to give the sales spiel when we had time (i.e. during our vacation). The tall blond god of a man tired to sell us a merino sheepskin covered mattress with a coverlet. One didn’t need anything else, because the no matter the weather or the climate, the sheepskin maintained everything at your body temperature. Plus a pillow that was guaranteed to have oxygen in it so it didn’t smother children. It was said to be a relatively small investment for your health. There was also a kidney warmer, the bathrobe and booties, all for the low price of 1,250 DEM/$464, and if you ordered it now, you would receive it before December. The real worth was 2,000 DEM/$742 and it was going for 1,550/$575 but today we could get a coupon for 300 DEM/$111 discount! Well, several people took advantage of the offer. And several people walked out! We were told to be eligible for the gifts and prizes, we needed to write our names and room numbers on the invitation. So we did, and left. We returned to the room to apply insect repellent, then went down for the start of the “Greek evening” at the tavern. We looked for an advantageous spot with a good view of the dance floor, but not in the first rows. We made sure we were just out of reach of the microphone cord! We got our drinks, 7-Up for me and Ouzo (a strong anise taste) for Marsha. When the place filled up, we ordered dinner while The Dorians band played Greek music with the bouzouki, a stringed instrument like a flat mandolin. I got lamb and Marsha had pork, in large portions with boiled potatoes, all soaked in an oily gravy. Plus we had a self-service salad bar with offerings like tzatziki, rice pilaf, stiffed grape leaves, potato salad, cooked carrots, Greek salad (with not much feta cheese), a fishy salad, Russian salad, pickles, etc. We stuffed ourselves. The emcee got up to sing a couple songs and do a few steps of a Greek dance. Then he tried to teach “Zorba’s dance” and had a crowd of people trying it. Hooboy! A lot of uncoordinated folks! After more music, a group of dancers came out to demonstrate different dances, and then had the crowd dance. Marsha and I got pulled in to the dance, too. I was next to a tiny woman whom we had seen receiving close attention from a couple waiters the day before (holding her hands, draping their arms across her back, trying to take off her bathing suit top, covering her head with a towel, etc.). As we snaked around the tables, we passed one full of waiters, and a couple jumped up and grabbed for this lady’s waist, joining in on both sides of her. There were other dances, and then the waiters did a dance. They were pretty good and the lead was very active, jumping, kicking out his feet, and twirling. At one point the lead waiter danced as the others got down on one knee to clap in time with the music. They dragged a table into the dance floor and pout a chair on it. The dancing waiter picked up the chair with a corner of the seat in his mouth and a leg propped on his chest. Next they dragged a girl from the audience to dance with this guy up on the table. He was being provocative, but she wasn’t going along. He put her back to back against him and wiggled his hips. Down on the floor he tried too crawl between her legs, and she wouldn’t let him. (She was from Austria.) The dancing group came out again, and the leader danced with a scythe. They had the crowd dance again, then the emcee sang lots of songs. By now, most of the attention was on the waiters’ table where the tiny lady. They did her hair in ponytails, they all grabbed lighters to light her cigarette, but she had to get a lit cigarette from a guy at a neighboring table. The man singing seemed to accept or even expect when the waiters took the tiny lady on the floor to do “Zorba’s dance.” Then a couple waiters took turns doing solo dances. The emcee/singer was at a table full of over middle-aged women who wore corsages, and he directed most of his songs to them. The barman tossed roses to the singer, and he gave them to the table of women. Marsha and I paid our 1,275 GRD/$9 bill and went to watch a Lee Majors show on a black and white TV before heading to bed.

Thursday, September 8, 1983

Breakfast at 8:15, this time with cookies, and out on the beach by 8:45. Listened to Voice of America. Saw the beach bum row several people out to meet a ship going up the coast. When the beach bum came to collect our chair rental fee, he greeted us with his usual singsong “Hello, Stereo!” (because we both had on earphones). Wherever he has seen us he has greeted us with “Hello, Stereo!” Took a shorter air mattress tour, this time lying on our backs to work on the tans! We came in at 11:30 to shower and were interrupted by the maid who hadn’t made the beds yet. We were early for lunch, so sat in the cushion-y chairs in the lounge. It was hard to get out of the chairs at 12:30. We had the waiter from the first night, but he was a lot nicer to us. We laughed with him over a group of German ladies who couldn’t make up their minds on what to order. We had our usual Pepsi and water. I had grapefruit juice and Marsha had the omelette Bolognese, with ground beef inside and tomato sauce on top. We had a mixed salad of tomato, cucumber, and cabbage. Then an oriental shish kebob (beef cubes), stewed eggplant, and mashed potatoes. For dessert I had the granite de pasteque/watermelon slush, but this was orange Tang with melon, and chocolate ice cream! Marsha had strawberry mousse. We left 505 GRD/$3.55 for the 105 GRD/74 cent bill, as the tip for the waiters for the week. This was our last pension meal.

We left our room key at the desk and walked past the Paradise Hotel to their bus stop which we figured was closer to us than the Eden Roc bus stop. The man at the Eden Roc desk told us the bus would cost 20 GRD/15 cents. We waited 10 minutes in the hot dry sun. We boarded by the driver, but there was a conductor selling tickets. We had our 20 drachma pieces ready. The conductor shook his head no, but then sold us 20 GRD tickets.

Rhodos bus ticket

The front of the bus was highly decorated with a crocheted red and green fringe over the front window with balls and curlicues hanging down. There were also stickers, plastic flowers, and a plastic icon lighted with a bulb for a candle. By about 14:00 we were dropped off behind the Neá Agorá/New Market. We saw the entrance to the Sound and Light Show, and followed the wall to the first entrance into the old town, passing a high wall decorated with flowering shrubs, a moat, and one more thick wall. In the town we tried to get our bearings using the mislabeled map in the guide book. We passed the Auvergne Hostel with its Municipal Gallery and followed along that block of medieval buildings. Passed a small square with a fountain, passed under an arch into a larger cobblestoned square, and then recognized the Odós to̱n ippotó̱n/Street of Knights from a photo in the guide book.

Street of the Knights

We walked up the narrow medieval street (not any wider than 6 m/119.6’. The large building to the left was the former Knights of St John Hospital, and further along was its old door, now tightly closed, so we couldn’t enter the present Archeological Museum. Across from this building was the former Italian Hostel, now the Commerce Bank, and next was the Palace of the Island Magistrate. Farther along on the right was the French Hostel. The so-called hostels were former inns for the knights, according to country, to better handle all the knights of the Crusades who came through Rhodos. Across from the French Hostel we could peek through an iron gate into a Turkish garden with a spring fountain. It was dark and cool. Then there was a side street with lots of arches overhead. Next on the left was the Building of the Unknowns and across from it on the right was a French chapel with a statue of the Madonna in an outside corner niche that protruded a bit over the street. Next to that was the Archbishop’s house. A street led off to the right then after passing under an arch, another street led off to the left. To the right were the Provence Hostel and an alley leading to a garden. Now on the left were the Spanish Hostel and then the Turkish School. Passing under another arch, we came to the entrance of the Castle of the Grand Magistrate. We entered a large courtyard on the right.

Castle of the Grand Magistrate

The original castle had been destroyed by a mysterious explosion of the Church of St John across the street, but was rebuilt by the Italians and decorated with mosaics from Kos, another Greek island. It was used as a House of Representatives by the Italians, as the Palace of the Governor of the Dodecanese, and as lodgings for the visits of King Vittorio Emanuele III and Benito Mussolini. We entered to purchase the 100 GRD/70 cent admission ticket.

Castle of the Grand Magistrate ticket

A man pulled off the ticket stubs and we went in to an inner courtyard to see Roman statues in niches across the front. Each statue supposedly had a new head, not quite fitting the body and made from a different material. We climbed the stairs without a railing to the right in hopes of entering the castle. But it led to a gallery overlooking only the courtyard. We returned to where we bought the tickets to an indoor staircase. The man had forgotten he had already taken our ticket stubs and had to ask the ticket seller for confirmation. We went indoors and to the right we entered the small chapel of St John, the patron saint of the knights. We climbed the stairs (again no railings) and entered the large “waiting” room. The floor was filled with mosaics of unpolished stone. There was a statue of the Rhodian Trophäe, a torso in armor. The next large room was the reception room with more floor mosaics, dating from the 5C. One small room had a mosaic of Medusa from the 2C BCE. We couldn’t find the room with Byzantine icons. After several more rooms, we came to the ballroom with ancient capitals on the columns and more floor mosaics. Farther along we found a room with two large paintings on the wall; the music room? We went through a long corridor and through more mosaic decorated rooms before coming to the Hall of Muses, with a mosaic showing the nine patrons of the arts and sciences. Every once in a while we saw a vase or some other article of antiquity. We exited and walked back down the Street of Knights, passing a group of Japanese tourists, followed by a couple of girls singsonging as if they were Chinese. We turned the last corner to the right and found the entrance to the Archaeological Museum. We bought the 100 GRD/70 cent tickets and entered.

Archaeological Museum ticket

I had my hair up in a wide ponytail and was wearing sunglasses. We also had acquired deep tans. The man turned to me and said something in Greek. Sorry! He asked if we were English. Americans, Marsha said. He asked if I didn’t have a Greek mother, or father, a little Greek blood? No!

We entered the former hospital and in the courtyard saw the Greek lion and a mosaic from 650 BCE. 

Lion and mosaic

There were also several piles of large stone balls, perfectly round: ammunition of the knights, and later of the Turks. All around on the ground and up in the gallery were pieces of columns, statues, altars, sarcophagi, etc. We went through a couple smaller rooms with more pieces of statues and reliefs, etc. Then we came to the Great Room with the gravestones of the knights, showing their coats of arms, from the 14C to 16C. At the near end was a fireplace, along one side was a bay said to be a chapel, and at the far end was a sarcophagus. The room was lined on the two long sides with little doorways. We peeked in to see the little dark rooms, with pieces of gravestones. Marsha went into one little room while I was reading the guide book. I then went to tell her something and entered the dark room. “Boo!” she said. I yelped and lost my bookmark, and we both started laughing. There were only two guards in the large room, and we were in the dark little room laughing until our stomachs ached. Finally we recovered enough to continue our tour. Through more rooms until we found the foot-tall statue of the Aphrodite of Rhodes. But the description called it an “adaption” and said it faced right, while in the photo it faced left. Throughout the city of Rhodos we saw pictures and souvenir statues of this figure facing in both directions. We came to an outer courtyard gallery, with more stonework pieces, bougainvillea, and a cat ready to attack a cigarette butt. We entered the Room of Timaritsa, along with the Japanese tour group with a guide speaking English, and a girl was translating. The guide pointed out the tomb of Timaritsa, which was a world famous piece of art that we had just heard of. It showed the daughter saying goodbye to her mother, contrasting the Ionian (the daughter) and Doric (the mother) styles. The mother was roughly carved in relief of straight lines with the eyes looking into space, hands and feet extended to leave the world. The daughter was softly carved in curving lines with a pulsing throat and a foot ready to step off the ground as she held her mother by one shoulder to keep her from leaving. The Japanese group left and Marsha and I were examining some 7C BCE pieces, when a guard came in and asked if we were with that group. No! He, too, wanted to know where we were from. We went around the gallery to several smaller rooms filled with vases, jewelry, ceramics, small figures, coins, etc., mostly finds from graves.

We left the museum and began walking up and down the narrow streets of the old town, jam packed with souvenir shops, selling clothing from embroidered Greek things to stenciled T-shirts, leather goods, ceramic goods, and there were fur shops galore. Why all the fur shops in a place where you would never wear one? Apparently there is a town on Rhodos where they hand sew together the fur coats. We came to Sti̱n odó So̱krátous/Socrates Street and walked down past the Castellania (the center for commerce for the knights and later the Turks) and along the city wall.

Socrates Street

We found the fountain surrounded by tiles with three seahorses rearing over it (a well, actually, at Martyron Evreon).

Well/fountain

Then we came to the ruins of a Gothic church covered with bougainvillea and hibiscus.

Gothic church ruins

We left the old town through a gate near the church, and were out by the commercial harbor with only a couple large ships.

Castle of the Grand Magistrate from the harbor

We walked left past the Gate of the Harbor and along the wall, passing all the brightly colored fishing boats. A man was repairing his nets on one boat. We climbed a battlement at one end of the wall to look down on a tiny beach and down the causeway with the windmills and the castle at the end. We could see Turkey across the water! We then walked along the causeway.

Causeway

Parked in front of the old windmills were several trailers from England. One was marked with a sticker indicating it was a TV trailer. Peeking into the trailers, we saw one was a closet of costumes and another was a hairdresser’s shop! We checked out the windmills with the canvas sails.

Greek windmill

Windmills

To the left was the Mandraki Harbor filled with yachts.


Mandraki Harbor

As we walked back along the causeway, we admired the yachts, and found two from Newport Beach, USA, and a couple from Switzerland. We passed the Kon-Tiki floating restaurant and followed the mainland side of the harbor, passing giant yachts and all the tourist boats. One offered scuba diving with free photos, or an underwater movie of yourself for an additional charge. We spotted the tiny bronze deer, one female and one antlered male, that stand on short columns at the harbor entrance and walked towards them. They represent the first deer the Italians brought to the island to get rid of the snakes.

Bronze deer at the entrance to the harbor

They may also indicate where the feet of the great Colossus of Rhodes once stood.

After taking photos, we found we were next to the Evangelical church, and entered to see the highly decorated interior with fresh looking frescoes in stylized Byzantine style covering walls, ceilings, arches, and columns. There were also icons, flags, and the most amazing things were three giant chandeliers with several smaller ones and several incense lamps hanging over us. Overwhelming! We went out a side door to see a baptismal font (or fountain?). Through side arches we could see racing sculls.

We went back through the church to walk along the street back to the New Market. We sat at an outdoor café for drinks, and to share a piece of baklava. We used the restroom near the taxi station, then headed back to the old town and wandered some more. We went up Socrates Street to the right, passing tourist restaurants. Marsha found a shop to buy a few ceramic items. We went through several arches and across a couple moats to the Gate of Amboise. There looking down into the moat we saw lots of deer. We re-entered the old town and saw the pink Mosque of Suleiman with its stone minaret.

Mosque of Suleiman minaret

Back on Socrates Street, we saw what seemed to be a director telling crowds of “tourists” where to walk and when. Up on a rooftop were a couple large cameras. But although we watched for nearly 20 minutes, there was no action. But we had a great opportunity to people-watch, trying to guess who were the actors and who were the tourist spectators like us. We went to the other end of Socrates Street to Plateía Ippokrátous/Hippocrates Square with its fountain.

Hippocrates Square fountain

This time we turned left at the Castellania and walked through several more tourist shop streets. We found ourselves at the first gate we had entered, and this time noted the ruins of a temple to Aphrodite.

City gate

We went to check the menu at the Kon-Tiki Restaurant about 18:30. We didn’t want to be the first ones in the restaurant, so walked  the length of the causeway again. Then we were the second two people to enter the restaurant! We sat on the yacht side and had plenty to watch during dinner, including the docking of a large yacht. I had tzatziki with a warm roll and Marsha had  a Greek salad with a large chunk of feta cheese. I had moussaka that had a layer of eggplant on the bottom, lots of ground beef, and another layer of eggplant topped with a very thin tasteless crust. So no nutmeg taste. Marsha had Shrimps Kontiki with a half dozen large shrimp minus two (only four!) with heads still attached, with rice and salad. She then had baklava with a greek coffee. Despite the warning, she got a taste of the coffee silt in the bottom of the cup. The sun had set and certain buildings were spotlighted (like the Evangelical church). The New Market was lighted with borders of light bulbs. It looked neat with a sickle moon in the sky over it. We paid our bill of 1,695 GRD.

Kon-Tiki Restaurant dinner bill

“Expensive,” but still only $12. We went to the bus station behind the New Market and saw the next bus would be at 21:30. We worried about how we would identify our bus. But when an ambiguous bus arrived, the conductor got off and shouted out the names of all the hotels he stopped at. So we boarded and discovered the fare was actually 30 GRD/20 cents to the Paradise Hotel. We preferred going to the Paradise rather then the Eden Roc bus stop where we would have a long walk in the pitch dark. At the Paradise Hotel, we went to the Supermarket where Marsha bought some souvenir bottles of ouzo. It was Bingo night back at our hotel, but we went to our room to pack.