Where Knights Left Their Mark: A Rhodes Old Town Walking Tour

Rhodes Old Town still wears its medieval battle scars, from a cannonball-strewn moat to a street built for warrior monks. On this walking tour, you'll find out how the Knights Hospitaller turned Rhodes into a fortified headquarters. You'll also hear how a five-month siege finally ended their rule in 1522.

The tour starts outside the Liberty Gate, a 1920s Italian addition that only looks medieval, before leading past the ruined Temple of Aphrodite and onto the Street of the Knights. Along this cobbled hill you'll pass the ornate Inn of France, the shared Inn of Spain, and other inns once occupied by regional groups of Knights, all converging on the Palace of the Grand Master.

You'll hear how a hundred-thousand-strong Ottoman army breached the walls in 1522, and how the city's layers of massive defensive walls and gates delayed the Ottoman advance for months before the Knights were finally forced to surrender. Along the way, you'll wander through the Jewish Quarter's Holocaust memorial and learn where the ancient Colossus of Rhodes, one of the Seven Wonders of the World, may have actually stood. The tour ends at the Doe and Stag statues overlooking Mandraki Harbor, where you'll understand how these waters once connected Rhodes to the wider Mediterranean world.

On this 90-minute walking tour, you'll have a chance to:

• Climb the 600s-era Clock Tower for panoramic views over the Old Town's stone walls
• Explore the Great Hospital, now the Archaeological Museum, where medieval patients underwent surgery and confession alike
• Walk through the dry moat beneath D'Amboise Gate, still scattered with Ottoman cannonballs from 1522
• Sample galaktoboureko, a custard-and-phyllo pastry with Greek and Turkish roots, at Fournariko Bakery
• Visit the rose-pink Mosque of Suleiman and the Ottoman library housing a fifty-year handwritten Quran
• Stroll down lively Socrates Street, the Old Town's bustling commercial spine, lined with shops and cafés
• Pass three surviving windmills that once ground grain and doubled as harbor watchtowers

By the time you reach the Doe and Stag statues, you'll understand why this small island once stood at the center of the Mediterranean's greatest empires and legends.