Trip Report Lindos and Rhodes
Aug 23rd, 2013, 11:39 AM
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Trip Report Lindos and Rhodes
Visit to Lindos and Rhodes May 2013
We caught the early morning flight from Chania to Athens and then a flight to Rhodes and were there before noon. We just couldn’t stand the thought of a 12 hour ferry ride. We picked up our car from Rodos Cars and were on our way to Lindos for a week. It was an easy drive on fairly good roads. We first visited Lindos for a day on a cruise 17 years ago and always wanted to come back and stay. We found a parking spot at the beach and walked up the hill to Lindos square where the hotel brought a cart to carry our bags through the maze of tiny streets way in to the town. I had high hopes that we might recognize enough landmarks that we might be able to find our way out again on our own. Our window at Maris studios overlooked Lindos Bay beach so we figured we should be able to find that easily enough so off we went for our first real day of beaching since there were high winds when we were in Crete.
We had a lovely lazy day at the beach and enjoyed the charming custom of wandering into the mini mart for an ice cold Mythos. In staid old Canada public consumption of beer on a public beach is simply not allowed.
A donkey tale The next morning we got up and were prepared to explore the town but got a late start and discovered last night’s empty streets were now thronged with day trippers and donkeys all destined for the Acropolis. Those donkeys take up a lot of room and we found ourselves with our backs to the wall trying to avoid getting scrunched as donkeys passed in both directions. It was organized chaos, delightful in its own way but still a bit frightening for us and also for the rather bemused looking riders. On one occasion a man and his wife were walking in front of us and although we didn’t understand their language it was obvious the man was fed up with this whole donkey thing and was obviously telling his wife he wasn’t going to move. Well I guess the donkey also couldn’t understand the conversation because it just continued on and hit him a glancing blow. He staggered backwards. I sure wish I could understand what his wife was saying to him but I am pretty sure it stared out with “you old fool.” It really made my day. Last word on the donkey story there is one little guy who has a bucket, broom and a cell phone. He spends all day patrolling the streets for donkey droppings and every once in a while get a call for a particularly bad one. I can still see him racing back and forth like a blue streak on clean up patrol. I bet that guy is in great shape.
So instead of staying in town we collected our car from the beach parking and headed out to explore South Rhodes. We visited Pefki and then followed the shore highway along the coast to Prassonissi where we spent an hour before looking for a late lunch. We found a great Gyros Taverna in Apolakkia. This really was the best Gyros we had on our whole trip. I am afraid the name escapes me but they had a Tripadviser write up in their menu so they are popular.
I have to take a moment to relay an interesting little drama we witnessed in Apolakkia. There are two Gyros tavernas right across the road from each other. Each had a female hostess waiving at the cars and inviting them into their tavernas. I will call them brunette and blondie. Brunette had a steady flow of customers but blondie was only getting perhaps 10% of the people. The two tavernas were essentially indistinguishable, other than blondie’s had a wood fire grill which I would have thought should give her the advantage. We too had chosen brunette so I asked my wife” why did we choose this taverna.” She said “ I am not sure, blondie caught our attention first but we instinctively came over to Brunette.” After observing I realized that blondie had an unusual pattern when greeting cars. She would hold up her hand like a policeman and then sweep her arm toward her taverna while brunette would just sweep her hand toward her taverna. Blondie was sending some subliminal message with her unfortunate halt sigh that was putting people off. I really wanted to go over to her and tell her what I observed but you know my gyros and mythos distracted me.
On the way back we stopped at Pefki and discovered a remote little cove and spend an hour trying out our snorkel gear.
Lindos Acropolis. I think that my love for Greece was born at Lindos Acropolis all those years ago. As I said I am fascinated by castles and this is the first one I ever visited. Reconstruction has continued through the years and now there is a pretty good representation of what it may have been like over the centuries. We decided to walk up to the acropolis from the village starting along the clifftop and approach it across fields sort of like we were invading it. That provided quite a different perspective than the normal donkey route. Unfortunately playing pirate delayed us to the point that allowed lots of people to get up there before we did. It was fairly crowded. It is really hard to get images of the place without having a bunch of people standing around. Oh well I guess I got in the way of others photographers too. The acropolis was a highlight of the trip perhaps even more so than Rhodes town.
Dinner at Lindos. Most of the tavernas have rooftop terraces with acropolis views. I had expected there would be lots with Lindos bay views but that was not the case. We found the dinners to be a mixed bag; some were excellent and some just OK. This is the first time we had found such a variance in the quality of the food in the same town. We did find one little hole in the wall Marios taverna where the portions were large prices were inexpensive and the customers seemed to be regulars. We ate there twice.
Parking As I mentioned we initially parked at the free parking by the beach but that seemed to be a long way away from the hotel so we tried Krana. We arrived late in the afternoon and parked with a bunch of other cars in the paved lot. The next morning when we returned to get the car we realized that most of this lot was for bus parking and all the busses had left for the day when we parked. Our poor wee Kia was dwarfed by all the busses. Fortunately we were able to slip out between them. The amazing thing is the car was still there. If I had pulled a stunt like that in Canada I would be looking for a taxi to take me to the car impound lot. So we found a new place to park at St Pauls Bay. We discovered that there were signs leading us through Lindos village to St Pauls and there were only minor hills so that became our parking place for the rest of the trip.
The hunt for Castles We headed out with the intent to find several castles and found three somewhat intact ones including Monolithos and Kritinia. I must say after climbing up to Monolithos the drive up to the castle at Kritina was very welcome. There is some big kid in me I as I just love finding these castles. We also found one when we got lost on a scenic road. We had no idea where we were but suddenly there was Asklipeiou castle. Unlike all the rest this which were situated on the coast this one was inland in the middle of nowhere.
Rhodes town. We took a day and drove to Rhodes town and explored the old city. That whole place could be considered to be a big castle and I was in my element. After a few hours the crowds seemed to descend on the town so he headed back to Lindos and explored beaches on the way. It was windy but we discovered Anthony Quinn Bay and the little town of Stegna and of course our own St Pauls Bay. We eventually spent half a day at both St Pauls and Anthony Quinn. Both are great beaches.
Early morning drive to the airport. We had a 6am flight so had to leave the hotel by 4 to get there an hour before flight time. I was pretty concerned with the drive in the dark on what were pretty unfamiliar roads. We just pulled out of the parking lot when a big bus came roaring along and we fell in behind him. We followed all the way to the turnoff to the airport. We felt like a little duckling in a row behind mommy nice and safe.
Images of Lindos and Rhodes
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stanbr5...7634754696058/
Next up Milos
We caught the early morning flight from Chania to Athens and then a flight to Rhodes and were there before noon. We just couldn’t stand the thought of a 12 hour ferry ride. We picked up our car from Rodos Cars and were on our way to Lindos for a week. It was an easy drive on fairly good roads. We first visited Lindos for a day on a cruise 17 years ago and always wanted to come back and stay. We found a parking spot at the beach and walked up the hill to Lindos square where the hotel brought a cart to carry our bags through the maze of tiny streets way in to the town. I had high hopes that we might recognize enough landmarks that we might be able to find our way out again on our own. Our window at Maris studios overlooked Lindos Bay beach so we figured we should be able to find that easily enough so off we went for our first real day of beaching since there were high winds when we were in Crete.
We had a lovely lazy day at the beach and enjoyed the charming custom of wandering into the mini mart for an ice cold Mythos. In staid old Canada public consumption of beer on a public beach is simply not allowed.
A donkey tale The next morning we got up and were prepared to explore the town but got a late start and discovered last night’s empty streets were now thronged with day trippers and donkeys all destined for the Acropolis. Those donkeys take up a lot of room and we found ourselves with our backs to the wall trying to avoid getting scrunched as donkeys passed in both directions. It was organized chaos, delightful in its own way but still a bit frightening for us and also for the rather bemused looking riders. On one occasion a man and his wife were walking in front of us and although we didn’t understand their language it was obvious the man was fed up with this whole donkey thing and was obviously telling his wife he wasn’t going to move. Well I guess the donkey also couldn’t understand the conversation because it just continued on and hit him a glancing blow. He staggered backwards. I sure wish I could understand what his wife was saying to him but I am pretty sure it stared out with “you old fool.” It really made my day. Last word on the donkey story there is one little guy who has a bucket, broom and a cell phone. He spends all day patrolling the streets for donkey droppings and every once in a while get a call for a particularly bad one. I can still see him racing back and forth like a blue streak on clean up patrol. I bet that guy is in great shape.
So instead of staying in town we collected our car from the beach parking and headed out to explore South Rhodes. We visited Pefki and then followed the shore highway along the coast to Prassonissi where we spent an hour before looking for a late lunch. We found a great Gyros Taverna in Apolakkia. This really was the best Gyros we had on our whole trip. I am afraid the name escapes me but they had a Tripadviser write up in their menu so they are popular.
I have to take a moment to relay an interesting little drama we witnessed in Apolakkia. There are two Gyros tavernas right across the road from each other. Each had a female hostess waiving at the cars and inviting them into their tavernas. I will call them brunette and blondie. Brunette had a steady flow of customers but blondie was only getting perhaps 10% of the people. The two tavernas were essentially indistinguishable, other than blondie’s had a wood fire grill which I would have thought should give her the advantage. We too had chosen brunette so I asked my wife” why did we choose this taverna.” She said “ I am not sure, blondie caught our attention first but we instinctively came over to Brunette.” After observing I realized that blondie had an unusual pattern when greeting cars. She would hold up her hand like a policeman and then sweep her arm toward her taverna while brunette would just sweep her hand toward her taverna. Blondie was sending some subliminal message with her unfortunate halt sigh that was putting people off. I really wanted to go over to her and tell her what I observed but you know my gyros and mythos distracted me.
On the way back we stopped at Pefki and discovered a remote little cove and spend an hour trying out our snorkel gear.
Lindos Acropolis. I think that my love for Greece was born at Lindos Acropolis all those years ago. As I said I am fascinated by castles and this is the first one I ever visited. Reconstruction has continued through the years and now there is a pretty good representation of what it may have been like over the centuries. We decided to walk up to the acropolis from the village starting along the clifftop and approach it across fields sort of like we were invading it. That provided quite a different perspective than the normal donkey route. Unfortunately playing pirate delayed us to the point that allowed lots of people to get up there before we did. It was fairly crowded. It is really hard to get images of the place without having a bunch of people standing around. Oh well I guess I got in the way of others photographers too. The acropolis was a highlight of the trip perhaps even more so than Rhodes town.
Dinner at Lindos. Most of the tavernas have rooftop terraces with acropolis views. I had expected there would be lots with Lindos bay views but that was not the case. We found the dinners to be a mixed bag; some were excellent and some just OK. This is the first time we had found such a variance in the quality of the food in the same town. We did find one little hole in the wall Marios taverna where the portions were large prices were inexpensive and the customers seemed to be regulars. We ate there twice.
Parking As I mentioned we initially parked at the free parking by the beach but that seemed to be a long way away from the hotel so we tried Krana. We arrived late in the afternoon and parked with a bunch of other cars in the paved lot. The next morning when we returned to get the car we realized that most of this lot was for bus parking and all the busses had left for the day when we parked. Our poor wee Kia was dwarfed by all the busses. Fortunately we were able to slip out between them. The amazing thing is the car was still there. If I had pulled a stunt like that in Canada I would be looking for a taxi to take me to the car impound lot. So we found a new place to park at St Pauls Bay. We discovered that there were signs leading us through Lindos village to St Pauls and there were only minor hills so that became our parking place for the rest of the trip.
The hunt for Castles We headed out with the intent to find several castles and found three somewhat intact ones including Monolithos and Kritinia. I must say after climbing up to Monolithos the drive up to the castle at Kritina was very welcome. There is some big kid in me I as I just love finding these castles. We also found one when we got lost on a scenic road. We had no idea where we were but suddenly there was Asklipeiou castle. Unlike all the rest this which were situated on the coast this one was inland in the middle of nowhere.
Rhodes town. We took a day and drove to Rhodes town and explored the old city. That whole place could be considered to be a big castle and I was in my element. After a few hours the crowds seemed to descend on the town so he headed back to Lindos and explored beaches on the way. It was windy but we discovered Anthony Quinn Bay and the little town of Stegna and of course our own St Pauls Bay. We eventually spent half a day at both St Pauls and Anthony Quinn. Both are great beaches.
Early morning drive to the airport. We had a 6am flight so had to leave the hotel by 4 to get there an hour before flight time. I was pretty concerned with the drive in the dark on what were pretty unfamiliar roads. We just pulled out of the parking lot when a big bus came roaring along and we fell in behind him. We followed all the way to the turnoff to the airport. We felt like a little duckling in a row behind mommy nice and safe.
Images of Lindos and Rhodes
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stanbr5...7634754696058/
Next up Milos
Aug 23rd, 2013, 07:11 PM
#4
>>Actually there was a gap between paragraphs on my word document. When it got pasted into Fodors it was compressed<<
Yes - I know. - you can tell by the 'indentations'. When you post here you need to a double return to get a paragraph <u>break</u>.
Yes - I know. - you can tell by the 'indentations'. When you post here you need to a double return to get a paragraph <u>break</u>.
Aug 24th, 2013, 07:13 PM
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Very entertaining! Lovely photos as well (as usual). I must admit to some serious trip envy after reading all your reports. We stayed home this year due to the birth of baby #2 in February. Next year is already committed to Italy to re-trace our honeymoon for our 10th anniversary, so it will be 2015 before we're back in beautiful Greece. What an interesting trip that will be with a 2 and 4 yr old! Although I can't think of a more welcoming country for children
Aug 24th, 2013, 08:45 PM
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Ah yes baby number two is always a different experience from baby number one. Where are you planning to go in Italy. We have pictures of Sorrento and Rome form this year if you are interested.
Sep 20th, 2015, 06:52 PM
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Hi Laura. You have found an old post for sure.
We did not stay in Rhodes town so it is probably not a fair comparison between Rhodes town and Lindos. After visiting both on a cruise in 1996 we always wanted to spend more time in Lindos.
So thats what we did in 2013. While we did enjoy Lindos particularly the village and the beach plus the acropolis I have to admit the donkey traffic and all the bus tour tourists made us want to get out of town between 10 and 3 each day. We were glad we had a car.
We were impressed with Rhodes town and suspect it can absorb tourist crowds better than Lindos. If I had to make a choice I think we would go back to Lindos though.
We did not stay in Rhodes town so it is probably not a fair comparison between Rhodes town and Lindos. After visiting both on a cruise in 1996 we always wanted to spend more time in Lindos.
So thats what we did in 2013. While we did enjoy Lindos particularly the village and the beach plus the acropolis I have to admit the donkey traffic and all the bus tour tourists made us want to get out of town between 10 and 3 each day. We were glad we had a car.
We were impressed with Rhodes town and suspect it can absorb tourist crowds better than Lindos. If I had to make a choice I think we would go back to Lindos though.
