Rhodes Day 3 - East Coast, Lindos

Our second full day in Rhodes, we all decided to rent a tiny car (Fiat Panda) to go explore the island.  After another lovely breakfast (excellent breads, feta, olive oil, yogurt, honey, fruit salad).  To begin with we headed down the East coast toward Lindos.  Along the way, we stopped at a wonderful beach at Tsampika.  This beach was very sandy, not rocky at all, very easy to walk out into the water.  The water was pretty warm, and very shallow for quite a ways.  We had to walk out 100 feet or more before it got deep enough to really swim.  The water was so clear that we could see our toenails.  Back on the beach, we each made sand castle/towers/minarets, and built defenses against the tide, which slowly destroyed the towers.

Continuing on towards Lindos, we stopped in another town, Archangelos, to walk around for a bit and check things out.  Misty and I bought some overpriced sunscreen and lotion from a pharmacy, and we got some Greek pastries and enjoyed them on a bench near the beach at Stegna.  At the beach here, we also saw octopus drying on a clothesline.

Once we reached Lindos, we were ready for lunch and went to a place recommended by Patrick called Taverna Palestra.  A very friendly lady who was very confused about our nationalities took good care of us.  She thought we were two Spaniards, one French, and one English, not sure how that happened, but the waiter was very confused since he knew we were all Americans, and she kept telling him to take stuff to the table with the French, English, and Spaniards.  We had some good seafood here including an excellent sea bass.

After lunch, we made the trek up to the Acropolis of Lindos.  Donkeys are available to get you up most of the way, but we didn't find it too difficult to go on foot.  The town is very cute and a small wedding was taking place along the busy touristy streets.  We meandered through the streets following the few arrows and such pointing the way to the acropolis.  The streets are mostly cobblestone, but every once in a while there is a very decorative mosaic in the ground.

At the top is a large complex of ruins, some reconstructed, but the best thing here is the view, what an excellent view.  From the top, you can see a lot of the island including several beaches and coves and miles of water.  You can also see why this was used as a fortress as it would be an excellent lookout and would be easily defended as it sits on a giant monolith.  The acropolis ruins are quite extensive and rival even the acropolis in Athens.  There's an entire length of a building, some 276 feet long, a stoa, that has the foundation intact with side buildings partially reconstructed with columns put back together.

After the return trip, we left the car at St. John's gate, and walked back to the hotel.  For dinner, we went out to a very old, very traditional, family run place called Yianni's.  We got a Greek platter (butter beans, calamari, etc), pork souvlaki, salad and stuffed eggplant. There was a nice woman dressed in very pretty, ebroidered clothes. The man who waited on us was very short and stern, he didn't care for the beggar cats that tried to join us for dinner.