World Cruise Day 113/152 - Rhodes, Greece - A modern, ancient castle

Cruise day: 113/152

Ports days: 52
Sea days: 61
Countries: 19
Continents: 5
Ports: 38

Good morning from Rhodes!  Rhodes is both an island and a city and we're in both - the city of Rhodes on the island of Rhodes, Greece. Rhodes (the island) is part of the Dodecanes off the coast of Turkey that were formerly Italian islands but were transferred to Greece in the Treaty of Peace with Italy in 1947.

This Greek warship was hanging out by us for the better part of the day.

Our excursion this morning was a walking tour of the old walled town of Rhodes.  It was great as you walk off the ship and the town is a short walk away - no buses.  That is a good thing. Our tour left the pier and headed toward the walled old city of Rhodes.

A for effort, zero points for spelling ("choise")

Fishermen out for a morning catch

They let plants start growing on the wall and then come in and scrape everything off

The entry to the walled city - the entire length of the wall is about 4km or about 2.5 miles

As we walked, we passed many shops and eateries. The streets were paved with stone - much of it replaced and not original.

Many of the streets are paved with stone

Most of these are decorative but occasionally they are chutes to channel water off the roof

The French consulate.

A main roadway within the city is known as the Street of the Knights - the Knights of Rhodes were the same organization as the Knights of Malta

Ultimately, we worked our way up to the Palace of the Grand Master of the Knights of Rhodes.  This palace was originally built in the 7th century.  The role of Grand Master was elected and once elected, it was a lifelong position that you held until death. This palace was the residence used by the Grand Master.  It had 110 rooms including a small cathedral (St. Catherine's).

Since then, it has been rebuilt and modified multiple times, most recently in the late 1930s by the Italians that controlled the Dodecanes islands.

This bee was busy on the plants in the entry courtyard

We climbed the stairs and started our tour of the palace.

Some of the mosaic floors were amazing.  In my estimation, the largest piece had somewhere between 2-3 million pieces, each hand-laid.  Amazing.  These were not part of the original castle but were raided by Mussolini in the hopes of living here.  He stole art, especially inlaid floors, and moved them here.

Near as I can figure, this is the mosaic that has somewhere north of 2M to 3M pieces of hand-laid tile - the fact that first, it survived time, and second, survived a move, was incredible

This is the first of three Murano glass chandeliers that were moved to this castle by the Italians.

The second of three Murano glass chandeliers that Mussolini pilfered and moved here along with mosaics from all over.

The final Murano glass chandelier

Arlona got into shooting fish pictures on mosaics.

Note the roman numerals, MCMXXXIX - 1939 - this was all rebuilt. So, many parts of this castle are rebuilt as a result of decay, earthquake damage, as well as Italian occupation

After touring the castle, we continued our walk around the city.

Vendors and restauranteurs were borderline aggressive trying to get you to spend your tourist dollars in their establishment.  But, overall, they were polite, genuine, and welcoming.

After the tour and our walk around, we headed back to the ship.

After a nice lunch, we walked around, taking photos of snow-capped Turkish mountains and the view around the ship.

The Palace of the Grand Master of the Knights of Rhodes

When they were young, our kids enjoyed finding houses that looked like faces - they called them face houses - this church sure looks like a squinting angry person

Viking prides itself on environmental policies. They regularly remind us that we only see steam coming out of the stacks as they have scrubbing technology installed to ensure that all output is benign.  While we were walking around, we heard a strange noise and saw this.

Granted, I'm no expert, but this sure isn't steam.  We saw this happen twice.  Once underway, our exhaust was back to its normal clear appearance.

Several of us meet for Manhattans on Friday and we did just that on the Aquavit deck to watch the sail away from Rhodes as we departed for Ephesus (Kusadasi), Turkey.  We'll be there tomorrow morning and we'll be exploring Turkey bright and early.

Viking once again treated us to surf & turf, this time cooked out on the Aquavit deck.  As usual, the steaks cut like butter and the lobster was delicious.