With 300 days a year of sunshine, historic attractions and monuments and sandy beaches, Rhodes (Rhodos) is a favourite holiday destination and the largest island of the Dodecanese in the south Aegean Sea. Former home to the famed Colossus of Rhodes, one of the Seven Wonders of the World, the island has been under the Arabs, Saracens, Genoese, Venetians, Crusaders, Ottomans and Italians. It became part of Greece together with the rest of the Dodecanese only in 1948.
The Old district of Rhodes Town is a film maker’s dream. The massive medieval walls, the Palace of the Grand Masters, the cobblestoned Knight’s Street with its medieval Inns, the slender Ottoman minarets, the Byzantine clock tower and the labyrinth of narrow streets transport the visitor into Rhodes’ past turbulent history.
The island of Rhodes is an all-year round resort and travel destination, glamorous, crowded, vibrant and cosmopolitan. Its sandy beaches offer themselves to luxury hotels, sun lounges, water sports and night-life entertainment. One of the most popular resorts, Faliraki, a 5km long sandy beach, is a day-and-night funfair with large hotel complexes, water sports, clubs, bars, cafeterias and a huge water park.
Lindos, which retains its architectural integrity being classified as an archaeological site, is also heaving with tourists in the summer. Up in the northwest coast of Rhodes, the valley of the butterflies, Petaloudes, is a beauty spot where from June to September a species of butterflies come to breed attracted by the scent of the storax trees. Monolithos on the west coast is famed for its 700-foot spur rising from the sea.
