Rhodes & Bodrum
Rhodes is in Greece; Bodrum is Turkey. Nevertheless, they get somewhat mixed up in my mind whenever I think of them. Both were old beachside cities with similar castles and medieval remnants.
Rhodes is actually a pretty sizable island, as these islands go. After a morning exploring the lovely main town, castle walls, and the Palace of the Grand Masters, Brad and I decided to venture a bit further out and see the Acropolis of Lindos. It turns out that Lindos is a good 45 minutes away from the main town by taxi. After a few refusals, we found a taxi willing to drive us out there and wait around for an hour for us to see it before driving us out.
I was very glad we went out. It was an interesting combination of the very, very, very old (a temple from 300 BC) and the only very old (13th century castle). It was also pleasantly uncrowded.
The best part of our Rhodes day might actually have been dinner. Like all dinners, we ate on the boat, but this day we made reservations for the more casual restaurant on the top deck. Normally the dining is al fresco, but it was a bit too windy, so we sat just inside a restaurant with floor to ceiling windows, and I popped outside at regular intervals to snap photos of a truly magnificent sunset.
Bodrum was not as memorable. According to my Turkish coworkers, the main draw is actually the night life, which, since our boat left before sundown, wasn't really an option for us. Nevertheless, there was a castle and a museum, and some nice shops... also, we had the best baklava there, served by a very talkative waiter. We didn't actually order them - and we might actually have been charged for them (the bill was in Turkish) - but they were very good anyway.
Rhodes is actually a pretty sizable island, as these islands go. After a morning exploring the lovely main town, castle walls, and the Palace of the Grand Masters, Brad and I decided to venture a bit further out and see the Acropolis of Lindos. It turns out that Lindos is a good 45 minutes away from the main town by taxi. After a few refusals, we found a taxi willing to drive us out there and wait around for an hour for us to see it before driving us out.
I was very glad we went out. It was an interesting combination of the very, very, very old (a temple from 300 BC) and the only very old (13th century castle). It was also pleasantly uncrowded.
The best part of our Rhodes day might actually have been dinner. Like all dinners, we ate on the boat, but this day we made reservations for the more casual restaurant on the top deck. Normally the dining is al fresco, but it was a bit too windy, so we sat just inside a restaurant with floor to ceiling windows, and I popped outside at regular intervals to snap photos of a truly magnificent sunset.
Bodrum was not as memorable. According to my Turkish coworkers, the main draw is actually the night life, which, since our boat left before sundown, wasn't really an option for us. Nevertheless, there was a castle and a museum, and some nice shops... also, we had the best baklava there, served by a very talkative waiter. We didn't actually order them - and we might actually have been charged for them (the bill was in Turkish) - but they were very good anyway.