A Room With a View

You're never too old to learn, eh? Only last week a guest on the Rhodes Town excursion gave me a leaflet advertising the "Roloi" (pronounced, 'rolloy', with the emphasis on the 2nd syllable), in the Old Town.

The word 'roloi' is quite versatile. It can mean a watch (as in the timepiece that you strap to your wrist), an electricity or water meter, or indeed a clock, whether it be the one on your grandmother's mantlepiece (remember those?) or a stone tower with a clock set high into each of its four faces. In the case of the one I'm referring to in this post, it's a Byzantine clocktower toward the top of the Old Town. It looks like this from below...

And before last week I'd never even noticed it. On August 23rd I'll have lived here on Rhodes for 13 years, too. There are probably a whole lot of other things I've yet to discover about the island I now regard as home, no doubt.

Thus it was that, a couple of days ago, again with five hours to kill while the guests on the coach went off to do their thing, I decided that I'd better go and investigate. The cost of entry to the Clock Tower is €5, but that does include a drink of your choice in the very attractive bar area that's available to all visitors. I paid my cash, received my ticket (plus the voucher for the drink at the bar, where they also have wi-fi BTW), and made my way up the stone steps to the tower's front door. Here's a photographic record of what you can expect to see (not in any particular order)...

Not a bad vista of the Grand Master's Palace from a higher vantage point. The building undergoing restoration in the foreground is a former Muslim School, which, once completed, is going to be used to host cultural events.

Quite a large section of the Old Town wall that can be walked is in shot here. I've wondered for years how to get up there. I finally found out (see below)

Another view of the 19th century Muslim School restoration project.

Looking South, across the roof of the mosque at the top of Socratous and down to the harbour area.

From here I could see people walking out on to the wall. This was how I eventually discovered, with a visit to the gate of the Grand Master's Palace, that the only way to get on to the walls is to buy a ticket inside the museum itself.

View from the Tower's doorway toward the café-bar area.

The 'new town' area above the trees is roughly the area known as Analipsi.

The bar area from the top of the tower, also with a great view of the commercial harbour.

The only way is up.

Nice scale model of the whole place under glass in a quiet corner of the courtyard.

One of the two ways you can access the entrance to the Clock Tower. This one is in Panetiou, which runs directly from outside the Grand Master's Palace entrance to the top of Socratous. The other is in Orpheus St.

Almost back down again.

Once I'd be up to the top and back down again, I retired to the bar area and ordered an orangeade with my voucher. All in all I really enjoyed the visit and the view from up-top was stunning.

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A couple of days ago I was reading something on a Facebook group for Grecophiles that really riled me. It was a caustic comment from someone who'd visited Rhodes and had a bad meal at a restaurant in the Old Town, which resulted in the individual concerned vowing never to come back to Rhodes. They also cited the manners and behaviour of the staff as one of the reasons why they felt they had the right to try and influence thousands of others to steer clear of an entire island, full of excellent restaurants and bars, sites to visit and friendly local folk, on the basis of one bad experience.

Now I'm not normally one to pull rank, but I've been visiting Greece (all over the country) since 1977 and I've lived here on Rhodes for 13 years, come the 23rd of this very month, and I can say from my experience that I've had some less-than-ideal meals and not-very-exemplary treatment from here, there and just about everywhere in Greece (add to that the UK, USA, Portugal, Spain and France if you like).

I'm not, however, stupid enough to lump the entire island, village or seaside town into one huge generalisation as a result of such experiences. I say 'stupid enough', but I could equally well have written 'conceited enough', because that's about what such a comment on a popular Facebook group's page amounts to. It's like saying to anyone who'll listen: "I know better than you and, if you take my word for it, you'll also steer clear of that island from now on." 

What? I mean, WHAT? 

Rhodes, like Corfu, Crete and lots of other islands and 'resorts' the world over, is home to thousands of people, most of whom are extremely welcoming to holidaymakers. It's home to thousands of restaurants and tavernas, most of which are of superlative quality and the staff at which are very welcoming. Were all of us to demonstrate the attitude shown by the individual to whom I refer above, there would be small-minded individuals boycotting destinations countrywide (nay, worldwide) and all of them trying to influence others to do likewise because of their say-so.

Ooh I get so livid sometimes! I need something nice to end with. Oh, yes, here's another photo of the 'Roloi' in the Old Town, taken from the top of Socratous...