Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The southeast coast
Until recently, tourist development petered out south of Líndhos, but these days
Rhodes'
southeast coast
holds plenty of facilities for travellers seeking to escape the
hectic atmosphere of the northern resorts.
Péfki
and
Yennádhi
are the best overnight
stops, while
Prassoníssi
at the southern tip is popular with windsurfers. Even if you're
not staying down here, it's worth touring in your own vehicle, stopping off perhaps in
the villages just inland, like
Asklipió
, with its wonderful church.
Péfki
A couple of kilometres around the headland beyond Líndhos,
PÉFKI
was originally the
garden annexe of its illustrious neighbour, but has now burgeoned as a resort in its own
right. Its principal
beach
, a gorgeous little cove lined with sand and lapped by sparkling
clear waters, inevitably becomes very crowded in summer, but other, more secluded
little beaches are tucked at the base of the low cliffs to the west.
Lárdhos
Although the village of
LÁRDHOS
stands well in from the sea, it has lent its name to
dense beachfront development a little further south. Its main beach, 2km south of the
centre, is gravelly and heavily impinged upon by hotels; Glýstra cove, 3km south, is a
small and more sheltered crescent that's at its best in low season.
Asklipió
Nine kilometres south of Lárdhos, close to the unexciting resort of Kiotári, a side
road heads 3.5km inland to
ASKLIPIÓ
, a sleepy village enlivened by a crumbling
Knights' castle and Byzantine
Kímisis Theotókou church.
Asklipió's central
Kímisis
Theotókou church
(daily: summer 9am-6pm, spring/autumn 9am-5pm; €1) dates
from 1060, and has a pebble-floored ground plan, to which two apses were added
during the eighteenth century. Thanks to the dry local climate, the
frescoes
inside
remain in breathtaking condition. Didactic “cartoon strips” extend completely
around the church and up onto the ceiling, featuring Old Testament stories
alongside the more usual lives of Christ and the Virgin. Half of the adjacent
Asklipió Museum
(same hours and ticket) is devoted to ecclesiastical treasures; the
other, housed in a former olive mill, holds a folklore gallery, full of craft tools and
antiquated machinery.
8
Yennádhi and Lahaniá
The drab outskirts of
YENNÁDHI
, 13km south of Lárdhos and the only sizeable
settlement on the southeast coast, mask the attractive older village core inland.
Though the present, barrel-vaulted structure of the village cemetery-church,
Ayía
Anastasía Roméa
, dates from the fifteenth century, it's built on sixth-century
foundations, and covered inside with post-Byzantine
frescoes
. Yennádhi's dark-
sand-and-gravel
beach
, clean and offering the usual amenities, extends for
kilometres in either direction.
Some 10km south of Yennádhi, then 2km inland, the tiny and picturesque village of
LAHANIÁ
was abandoned after a postwar earthquake, though since the 1980s its older
houses have been mostly occupied and renovated by foreigners.
Prassoníssi
The main circular island highway doesn't run all the way down its southernmost tip.
Branch south at Kattaviá, however, and a paved 8km spur road will bring you to
Prassoníssi
, a two-hour, 90km drive south of Rhodes Town. This gloriously desolate
spot has become a major rendezvous for
windsurfers
(see box, p.528).
