When Zeus shared out the earth between the Gods, Helios the sun god was absent. He was left with nothing, until out of the sea rose a beautiful island. Claiming it as his own and naming it after his sea nymph lover Rhodos,
Helios has been its protector ever since, or so the story goes.
Certainly, Rhodes is blessed with plenty of sun, as well as emerald seas, golden beaches, whitewashed villages tucked into dramatic rocky landscapes, and many of the other attributes of an ideal Greek island. Rhodes Town however is far from typically Greek, and there are clues all over the island to its unique and variegated history, as layered as a delicious local filo pastry pie.
Rhodes has in fact been ruled by Greeks for less than a third of the last 1,000 years. The Old Town, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is marked particularly by two pre-20th-century cultures – neither of them Greek – and it passed from one to the other 500 years ago this year. I was going to spend a week exploring the historic sites of this ancient island, hoping that Homer was correct when he described Helios as a god who ‘gives joy to mortals’.
EXPLORING THE OLD TOWN
We arrived at night through St Athanasios Gate,
