Rodos, City of the Knights

I have never been to a place like Rodos before. I knew, heading onto the Isle, that the Old City was the best preserved example of Medieval Fortifications in the world, thanks to the guide book, but that description did not prepare me for the sights I was in store for!
Rodos is best entered for the first time at night. You pass from the modern port beneath its soaring battlements, and it steals your breathe. It is like entering another age; all the vendors are closed, the streets cobbled, the buildings in near perfect repair, despite their age (our pension was built in the 14th century, although, obviously, modernized on the inside). Nowhere I have been has been so well maintained. The city looks, in the glow of iron cast lanterns, as it must have for the last 1000 years. The preservation is staggering.
We entered via the Gate of the Virgin, and the first building to greet us is the ruined Church of the Virgin (the only "ruin" in the whole city), a very striking gothic shell. Farther up the hill, you can see lofty minarets stab at the sky. Of course, the city is not a thing of the past, despite its looks, and beautiful young things wandered past us, as tribal hip hop beats drifted down to our ears.
The city has a lengthy history. Rhodes was an important isle for millenia, as it sat on 2 major trade routes; the north south route, from Cairo to Constantinople, and the east west route, from the mid east to rome (in the days before cruise ships, the mariners hugged coast lines, no doubt to avoid the tumultuous seas we encountered on our way from Crete). As such, it prospered. It was also a very important agricultural producer, gifted as it is by roughly 320 days of sunshine a year, and was famous for its wine and wheat.
In the begining, if you believe such, Rhodes was taken as a bride by Helios, the Greek god of the sun (NOT Apollo, as I keep telling Jer, who was the god of light, medicine, music, and prophecy, but not the sun!). Helios then chose to bless his wife with sunshine, beaches and warm weather. During recorded history, the Athenians set their greedy eyes of empire on her, and under the general Demetrius, set about assaulting the city. Despite their use of advanced seige equipment, Demetrius ultimately failed. In celebration, the Rhodians commisioned a statue of Helios of unsurpassed glory, the famed Colossus. It was cast in bronze, and soared to a height of 32m. Opinion diverges, but it is commonly held that the colossus did not stand over the harbour mouth, with feet spread, but stood overlooking the harbour with feet together to create a more stable base. We shall never know with a certainty, as the colossus only stood for 65 years before an earthquake toppled it (it lay there until 700ish AD, when it was sold to the "Jew of Edessa" whos name escapes me, as scrap).
During the Arab expansion, the isle fell to the infidel, but was retaken by the Byzantines, and acted as a naval base for several hundred years. In the Holy land, the kingdom of Jerusalem was sorely pressed, and had been reduced to holding Acre, and its surrounds. An uneasy peace was held, but in 1291, some (unwanted) crusaders arrived from Italy, and drunkenly slew some of Acres Muslim citizens. In reprisal, the arabs drove the christians from the holyland, this time for good. One of the Orders of Knights, the Knights of Saint John (or the Hospitallers) were now homeless. They spent the next several years roaming, looking for a home. Despite the fact that Byzantine was a Christian power, the Knights assaulted Rhodes, and took her in 1309. After the seige and conquest, the Knights turned Rhodes into a military marvel, and built the city that is still seen today. Defensively, it was nie untakable. Somehow, though, the Ottomans did just that in 1522, and forced the Knights to flee to Malta. Th Ottomans then ruled until Greek independence forced them out...interestingly, they did not deface or despoil any of the christian monuments, but allowed them to remain. During Ottoman rule, however, advancements to ships rendered Rhodes more and more a backwater. Italy, under Mussolini, eager to remake the "Roman Empire" took many islands in the 30's, and Rhodes was no exception. It was in Italian hands until the end of the war.
The city, as I said is beautiful beyond description. The walls, and the town are very complete, despite their age, and despite the violent past. On the walk about the walls, tourists are reminded that the ground there is hallowed, having been consecrated with the blood of 10's of thousands of men, Arab and christian. Its true. Those lofty walls have been soaked in blood. sobering to say the least.
The city is not all history, though, and its pretty maze of streets hold a wide variety of shops, eateries, and bars. Textiles from the Orient, and handmade in Greece are sold alongside fake sunglasses. Hookahs sell beside tourist claptrap. It is a very stirring mix of east and west!
Yesterday we visited the Grand Masters Palace, and then the rebuilt clock tower. The Palace was, well, Grand. It was huge, and at one time the central hub to one of the great political/religious orders in christendom. After the Ottomans allowed the order to flee (and they did allow it...the sultan even offered to let them use arab ships to speed the evacuation....despite the barbarism of the time period, they do at times seem very evolved in their nobility...not like todays terrorism, by states and groups), they used the palace as a prison, and it fell into disrepair. Mussolini, of all people, fixed it, and returned it to grandeur..."say what you will about the man, but he gets the trains to run on time"...
At the clock tower, there was a bar that served drinks (one was free with addmission). The girl who was pouring the drinks was a Slavic angel. She had the high cheek bones, the blond hair, that sculpted body. Wow. It turns out that she was a Russian by birth, but her family had fled communism in 1989, when she was 10, and she had been in Greece ever since. We had our free drink, and then another 7 rounds...10 yr old dark rum, mixed half and half, god is there anything finer? She was a font of information (85% of Rhodes still owned by Turkish families, and it still has a large Turkish population, even after the population exchange following Greece's ill-fated Smyna assault in the 1920's, and it was honestly the best afternoon yet. I love this life, meeting people, sharing a few laughs, forging bonds. God, she may be the prettiest girl I have ever known. Yes, a very pleasant 4.5 hours were spent on that roof top terrace, we got pleasantly buzzed, and got to hang out with a goddess. Life is SO hard at times.
Naturally, we were drunk early as a result, and hit the wall early as well...not that it mattered, the bartender worked 7 days a week, and could not go out....she is here for 7 months, and has so far had 2 days off since April...god these people work hard!
Schwy, we were fools for not coming here 3 years ago...easily the best town in Greece...the history, the party, the women, they are all here, in one exotic mix...and all the while, you feel the breathe of the Levant as it stirs the palms.....