Lindian Village Luxury

We are baskinng in the lap of luxury on the southeastern coast of Rhodes.  We are settled in at Lindian Village, a member of the marketing group, Leading Hotels of the World; certainly not a place we would normally be staying but in keeping with our 'find the deals' approach to travel, Joel happened upon a deal while researching hotels a few days ago.

Actually, Lonely Planet  travel guide had listed it as the author's choice, noting 'if you could afford it.'  This season we can.  I should note here that tourism is down; way down according to the folks we have talked to along the way.  The economic turmoil, protests that it generated and then Iceland's volcano are all being listed as contributing factors to the downturn in tourism.

We nabbed a Mediterranian room for the rate of 105E per night -- 50% of the normal rate -- about 130USD, with the current rate of exchange.  We were greeted with a welcome drink, driven by golf cart to our villa room and then pampered with a welcome bottle of wine, water and fruit plate.  The rate includes a full buffet breakfast with champagne each day (and the buffet rivals that of some of the best cruise ships we have been on).  The beach is like out of a movie. 

The resort is offering a 50% off rate through the end of June - if you found yourself in this part of the world, we would highly recommend taking advantage of the deal being offered.

Medieval contemplation and exploration

"You'll either like Rhodes or you will love it," is the opening line from Lonely Planet's guidebook section on this Dodecanese island. A more appropriate opening may never have been written. . .from the books we had read (travel guides and novels) we thought we would like Rhodes, and now on our fourth day within the walls of the medieval city we are pretty smitten with this place.  It isn't every day you get off a ferry and head to your hotel through a gate such as this one; the Marina Gate.

We are back in the land of mass tourism though, unlike our travels in southern Crete where we often were among much smaller numbers of tourists.  Here they arrive by the thousands on a variety of cruise ships.  We counted seven such ships in the harbor outside this gate two days ago and yesterday only the mammoth Celebrity Equinox brought hordes of day-trippers to the town.  The cruise ships these days reach far higher han the fortress walls.

During the day it isn't unusual to be greeted with the question, "You from the cruise ship?" so we try to focus our explorations away from the heart of the tourist trek lined with hopeful vendors.

But by late afternoon the tour groups have loaded into their buses or have ambled back to their cruise ships and the streets and alleyways empty and call out for contemplation and exploration

Rockin' and rollin' our way to Rhodes

Although we kept extending our stay in Symi for 'just another day' we realized that if we were to get to Rhodes it was time to say goodbye to our new friends and finds and set sail.  Our ship for this trip was the fast-boat Dodekanisos which normally would have whisked us across the 24 kilometers of Agean Sea in an hour.  But we did have a bit of stormy weather -- some said it was the red-dust-blowing Siroco winds from Africa and others said it had changed to the northern winds -- that rocked and rolled our boat like a swing.  They finally dropped the speed a bit but because of our early departure from Symi  we found ourselves at the gates of the medieval city by 9 a.m. Tuesday.

We announced our arrival in this old town as we rattled and clattered our bags through the labyrinth of narrow cobbled streets and alleyways until we happened upon Niki's Hotel where we are now 'at home' in a room that opens on to a garden terrace, up so high that a lemon tree drooping with fruit provides a backdrop to the view.

This 2,500 year Old Town of Rhodes is the largest inhabited medieval town in Europe -- once home to 30,000 some residents it now has 5,000 living within he walls.  We quite literally cross a moat and enter the town through one of its 13 gates to 'get home' after one of our excursions.

The old town is surrounded now by a new town which provides an itneresting juxtaposition:  we can walk one direction and be in a palace  inhabited by the Knights of St. John for some 200 years after their arrival in 1309 or we can walk a few blocks outside the walls and sip a Starbucks coffee. 

The waters that surround Rhodes have got to be some of the most spectacular we've seen; the colors of the sea simply dazzle.

Symi Days

Symi has provided not only spectacular 'in town' walks but some out into the countryside as well. And it seems the town father's or the tourist organization has worked extremely hard to make such explorations a most comfortable experience -- even though the routes can take you up and down from dizzying heights.  One of our favorite destinations was 'around the corner' a couple miles from where we were staying.  We had the option of walking on the dirt/paved roadway or going through town and linking up with the trail pictured above.  Our  little neighboring hamlet is called Nimborios - there we found  a scatterin of  spectacular private homes, a few rental studio apartnements and  a single taverna. . .who needs more in this setting?

 

 The trail was a flat surface all the way; rather steep and they don't use handrails or guardrails around here. . .so you can't let those drop-dead vistas let you lose concentration for too long, but with views like the one below it was hard not to be distracted.

Sunday Dinner in Symi

Our dinner is waiting for us back at our apartment. . .thanks to Fotini (foe-tee-NEE), the woman from whom we are renting and also our next-door-neighbor.  As we have settled into life on this magnificent harbor we realize everyone knows 'our' Fotini. . .we are asked where we are staying and we show the official businness card and the response is, "You stay at Fotini's."

We consider our stay here one of our best - thanks to Fotini making us feel a part of her family.  She and her husband do live next door, her daughter and grand-child and husband are above us and we speculate that a fellow just down the road might be related as well.

Fotini and her husband, we think, are about our ages - and constantly on the go.  They come and go by small boat as we do at home by car.  But when Fotini is home, she cooks and when she cooks, she shares.  Our first day in the studio I was 'preparing' lunch:  opening a package of sliced cheese to have with a sliced tomato and bread when I heard Joel chatting with Fotini.  She had brought us a little something for lunch: shrimp risotto, complete with a lemon to squeeze. (I sliced the tomato):

                         Since that first feast Fotini has provided a plate of pastries for my morning coffee and two days ago she brought us a plate of baklava from her sister-in-law in Turkey.  But back to tonight's dinner:  yesterday while she and her husband were gone, his brother brought them a large fireshly caught fish. . .we said we'd keep it in our place until they came home.  I took it over to them this morning and we headed out for a walk.  When we got home, we found our dinner waiting for us - a wonderful pot of fish stew (we had some for lunch) and cake.

As we have said before, travel is about places, but it is also about people. . .and Fotini is one of our all-time travel highlights.

On the road in Symi

Fellow blogger, Adriana Schum, who introduced us to this lovely island through her blog (listed on our blog log) reports that the weather here is above normal and that visitors and cats are looking for shade.  She's correct.  The temperature is 30C - read that, hot!  (We are not complaining -- just making note of it.)

We rented a car yesterday to explore this tiny island which has one primary road and several others that aren't quite the size of roads as we know them in the US but they took us to spectacular locations all the same. First trick was threading our way past the centuries old buildings that line the harbor. . .you time it so that you don't meet the island's one bus coming the opposite direction or you are the one to back up on these narrow stretches.

Then we were up, way up among the pine tries. . .in all fairness many stretches of the roadway did have guardrails. . .and others like this, didn't.  I will show you where this road took us. . .in tomorrow's post, but as Adriana so aptly said, I am heading out now for shade or air conditioning!

Settled in on Symi

We are pretty much settled in on Symi, the rocky, dry island in the Dodecanese chain of Greek islands that ring the south western coast of Turkey.  We are only six miles from the Turkish peninsula, Datco.  And we have set up a sort of housekeeping in a studio apartment in the middle of the group of three buildings shown in the photo above.

If you've ever dreamt of sailing the Greek islands this is the place to be as we have a steady stream of boat traffic just outside our door. . .fishing boats so tiny that you wonder how they stay afloat, multi-million dollar
private yachts, charter boats the size to make you gasp and of course the ferries.  This charter from Turkey pulled in earlier today.

We watch the parade from our deck.  Our room is a mere 50E a night. We lucked out whenwe met Fotini, the lady from whom we are renting.  More about her next time.

Cruising the Adriatic

We left Crete on Tuesday from its northeastern most port of Sitia.  We'd had a spectacular bus trip there the day before and had a few hours to explore the town after our late afternoon arrival.  We sailed Anek lines on the Priveli, a ship te size of cruise ships and complete with bars, restaurants, lounges and sun decks.  We opted for the sun deck. As you can tell, we opted for the sun deck where we spent much of the nine hours it took to travel from Sitia to Rhodes, or Rodos as it is known here.

Here Joel shows why we like ferry travel so much more than airplanes these days.

We arrived in Rhodes after seeing some beautiful islands and ports along the way that now are added to our 'next time' list including this one on the island of Karpathos:

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We changed to a smaller ferry in Rhodes and at 9 p.m., 12 hours after we had left Sitia, we arrived in our new destination the island of Symi,  More on it tomorrow. . .we are back to using internet cafes so will tease you with the photo of the harbor we entered to get to our new spot: