Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Italians as a summer home for Mussolini and King Vittore Emmanuele III, although
neither one ever visited Rhodes. While its external appearance, based on medieval
engravings and accounts, remains reasonably authentic, free rein was given in its
interior to Fascist delusions of grandeur.
The two splendid ground-floor galleries jointly constitute the best
museums
in town.
They often close due to staff shortages; check whether they're open before you pay for
admission, because otherwise there's precious little to see. One covers ancient Rhodes,
documenting everyday life around 250 BC; highlights include a Hellenistic floor
mosaic of a comedic mask. The other, across the courtyard, covers the medieval era,
stressing the importance of Christian Rhodes as a trade centre. The Knights are
represented with a display on their sugar-refining industry and a gravestone of a Grand
Master; precious manuscripts and books precede a wing of post-Byzantine icons.
Street of the Knights
The Gothic, heavily restored
Street of the Knights
(Odhós Ippotón) leads east from
Platía Kleovoúlou in front of the Palace of the Grand Masters. The various “Inns” along
the way lodged the Knights of St John, according to linguistic and ethnic affiliation,
until the Ottoman Turks forced them to leave for Malta in 1523. Today the Inns house
government offices, foreign consulates or cultural institutions vaguely appropriate to
their past. Several stage occasional exhibitions, but the overall effect of the Italian
renovation is sterile and stagey.
Archeological Museum
Summer Tues-Sun 8am-7.30pm; winter Tues-Sun 8.30am-3pm • €6
At the foot of the Street of the Knights, the Knights' Hospital now houses the town's
archeological museum
. A very lovely complex in its own right, which takes at least an
hour to explore, it consists of several galleries in the medieval hospital itself, plus a
delightful raised and walled garden where extensions and outbuildings hold further
displays. Rather too many rooms simply hold glass cases filled with small artefacts,
displayed with little contextual information, but there's a lot of interesting stuff, including
votive offerings from Egypt and Cyprus found in the Kamiros acropolis, and an amazing
array of ancient painted pottery. The grandest hall upstairs is lined with the tomb slabs of
fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Knights, but the light-filled gallery of
Hellenistic
statues
nearby is the true highlight.
Aphrodite Adioumene
, the so-called “Marine Venus”
beloved of Lawrence Durrell, stands in a rear corner, lent a sinister aspect by her
sea-dissolved face that makes a striking contrast to the friendlier
Aphrodite Bathing
.
8
Decorative Arts Collection
Platía Aryirokastrou • Daily except Mon 8.30am-3pm • €2
The vernacular treasures in the
Decorative Arts Collection
, which occupies a single large
room at the northern edge of the old town, were gleaned from old houses throughout
the Dodecanese. Redolent of Byzantine and Italian influences, they reflect the islands'
cosmopolitan past. Amid the fading embroidery and brightly painted plates, the most
compelling artefacts are the carved cupboard doors and chest lids, depicting
mythological or historical episodes.
Turkish Rhodes
Many of the mosques and
mescids
(the Islamic equivalent of a chapel) in which the old
town abounds were converted from Byzantine churches after the Christians were
expelled in 1522. The most conspicuous of all is the rust-coloured, candy-striped
Süleymaniye Mosque
, rebuilt during the nineteenth century on 300-year-old
foundations. Like most local Ottoman monuments, it's not open to visitors, though
the purpose-built (1531)
Ibrahim Pasha Mosque
on Plátonos, for example, is still used
by the sizeable Turkish-speaking minority.
