Rhodes, Day One

Tuesday, Sept 13^th

   Finally, the day has arrived.

  In less than two hours I will be on board an Air Transat flight bound for Athens. Although I am gone for 18 days, I have, so far, no information on the transfers from Athens to the various planned destinations. Rhodes, Crete, Santorini and Myconos are the stops before arriving for a final 3 days in Athens.

Harbour area- Rhodes

  I have been to each of those islands previously. However, instead of a cruise based, 4 hour dash around the island, the trips will involve a 3 to 5 night stay, allowing a much better chance to look around.

  Amazingly, there is free wireless service in the departure lounge. Finally, Toronto Airport is emerging from the Stone Age.

 Wednesday 14^th

Rhodes Old Town at night

    So much for the intro yesterday. The battery was close to dead on the laptop so I wasn’t able to do the running commentary that I had planned.

  It is close to 6:30 pm on Wednesday and I am operating on 90 minutes of sleep since 7am Tuesday morning.

   The flight to Athens was barely tolerable. The only difference between Air Transat and Nicaraguan inter city buses is the elevation at which they travel. Both offer uncomfortable seats, no leg room and really bad food at inflated prices. The Air Transat staff do, however, have smaller butts so they don’t get wedged in the aisles!!!

  On arrival in Athens, Transat did have staff at the airport giving out packages containing some information, hotel vouchers and flight and ferry tickets. Further information was delivered upon arrival in Rhodes.

  The flight to Rhodes was a smooth 60 minutes with great birds eye views of several of the easterly islands.

 The hotel for the next three days is called the Mediterranean. Probably a 3 star by Canadian standards, it overlooks the eastern side of town and is about a km from the Old Town. To the east, the coastline of southwest Turkey is barely 10 miles away.

  Rhodes actually dates back to the fifth century BC but the current fortifications surrounding the Old Town are from approx. 14^th Century and relate to the Crusaders. The only battles that occur within the walls now are between restaurant and store owners as they fight over clients. Most of the “ancient” buildings were actually rebuilt during the Italian Occupation, (starting in1912 and lasting through the time when Mussolini was in power. It was eventually returned to Greece and is probably listed on E-Bay right now or maybe the Chinese government will buy it once they have full ownership of the USA.

 As a major stop on the Mediterranean circuit, the port is often the temporary home of several cruise ships, 4 of which were docked today.

 While Susanna slept off some of her jetlag, I made the most of my time, walking along the harbour front, taking in the sights before supper.

  After a passable meal at the hotel restaurant ( included with the room rate) we walked into the Old Town where we ran a gauntlet of dozens of restaurants and hundreds of stores for an hour or so until jetlag and shear exhaustion drove us back to the hotel for the night.

 With nothing finite planned for tomorrow, we will see what transpires after we catch up on our sleep