Things to do in Rhodes Island

One island, two coasts

Rhodes covers about 1,400 square kilometres and runs some 78 kilometres north to south. A mountain spine splits it lengthways. Attavyros, the high point, reaches 1,215 metres.

It lies nearer Turkey than the Greek mainland. Italy ruled it last and ceded the Dodecanese in the 1947 peace treaty. The islands formally joined Greece in March 1948.

Which coast you are on decides the day. The east is sheltered and shallow, which is where the resorts and the dive schools sit. The west takes the wind head-on, so the boards and kites are all there.

Down the east side

• Lindos. A white village stacked under an acropolis on a rock, above the cove where St Paul is said to have landed.
• Kallithea. A spa the Italians raised in Moorish style in the 1920s, now a swimming cove with domes around it.
• Tsambika and Agathi. The sand people actually drive to, both a short way up the coast from Lindos.
• Prasonisi. A tied islet at the southern tip, joined by a sandbar through the summer and cut off when the water rises.

Inland and offshore

The interior is emptier than the coast road suggests. It keeps the island's stranger things.

• The Valley of the Butterflies, where Jersey tiger moths settle in a shaded gorge from about late May to September.
• Embonas under Attavyros, which is the wine village, and the frescoed church at Thari monastery further south.
• Ruined castles over the sea at Monolithos and Kritinia, both raised by the Knights and both a long way from anywhere.
• Symi by boat, an hour or two north depending on the hull, with Halki quieter still beyond it.

Practical

• Season. One of the longest in Greece, April into early November, with the sea still swimmable late in October.
• Choosing a beach. The meltemi blows through high summer, so choose by which coast is sheltered that morning, not by which is nearest.
• Driving. A car pays for itself south of the resorts. Buses reach the big ones, thin out badly down the west side and stop early.
• Cash. Cards work in the towns. Mountain tavernas, monastery collection boxes and the donkey men at Lindos do not take them.
• Opening. Archaeological sites cut their hours outside summer, and several shut for one weekday.
• Distance. The southern tip is a two-hour drive from the northern one, so pick a base rather than a centre.