Medieval City of Rhodes

UNESCO World Heritage Site: Medieval City Of Rhodes (1988) The Walled Town Of The Knights Of St John, 1309 1522, With The Street Of The Knights And The Palace Of The Grand Master · Rhodes, South Aegean

The Medieval City of Rhodes is the walled old town of the island's capital, one of the largest and best-preserved medieval towns in Europe and still a lived-in neighbourhood. From 1309 to 1522 it was the base of the Knights of St John, a military religious order that built the massive walls, gates, moats and bastions, the Street of the Knights with the inns of each national tongue, and the Hospital that now houses the Archaeological Museum. After the Ottoman siege of 1522 the town gained mosques, fountains and bathhouses; in the twentieth century the Italians restored and rebuilt much of it, including the Palace of the Grand Master. It has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1988. People come to walk the cobbled lanes, the moat and the ramparts, to see the Palace, the Hospital, the old Jewish quarter with its synagogue, and the busy squares. The honest caveat: the Palace is largely a 1930s reconstruction, the main shopping lanes are touristy, and cruise-ship days pack the gates and Sokratous street by mid-morning.

Walled Old Town of Rhodes, Dodecanese; main gates D'Amboise, Marine (Thalassini) Gate and Liberty Gate from Mandraki harbour, Rhodes, South Aegean, Greece

The old town is open at all hours: it is a living neighbourhood with gates open day and night. The Palace of the Grand Master and the Archaeological Museum follow state patterns - long summer hours (roughly 08:00 to 19:00 or 20:00), shorter in winter, closed on 1 January, 25 March, 1 May, Easter Sunday and 25-26 December; confirm current hours. The walkway on top of the walls opens only on limited days - confirm. Rhodes airport is about 14 km away, with buses and taxis to Mandraki; ferries from Piraeus take roughly 13-16 hours. Book summer rooms ahead.

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