This Museum is housed in an airy building, formerly the Knight’s Hospital. It’s not hard to like a museum where the staff have gone to the trouble of stacking the cannon balls into small pyramids. The main objects of interest, for me at least, mostly dated from the 6th Century BCE and were all found on Rhodes - faience vases in the form of hedgehogs, tweezers and cheese graters, terracotta donkeys, and a faience pendant of a lion, no bigger than a thumbnail. Also of great interest were objects from nearby civilisations including figurines of the Egyptian gods Bes, Thoth, and Horus looking like Aztec gods, bedecked with feathers.
Many large frescoes are found in the walled garden upstairs, including one from the 3rd Century BCE of Bellerophon on Pegasus fighting with a chimaera. Nearby is a more peaceful image of Eros riding a dolphin. This garden has a very tranquil setting and is worth lingering in, so the visitor can decide where to go next. Turn left out of the Museum and you soon come to The Inn of The Auvergne and the largely overgrown Aphrodite Temple, opposite the annexe of the Museum of Modern Greek Art. Turning right out of the Museum and then left along Sokratous brings the visitor to the Suleymaniye Mosque, closed to visitors, and the Ottoman Library.
This library was founded in 1793 by Hafiz Ahmed Aga. 1256 of the 1995 original medieval manuscripts and Korans can still be found here even though the head librarian took an inventory of the whole catalogue at the beginning of every year and was supposed to make good any losses. It seems strange that more than 700 books could go missing when the library employed not only the Head Librarian, but also two other librarians, two doorkeepers, and two guards. Perhaps my assumption that it was a lending library was incorrect?
Heading back along Sokratous to Plata Ippokratous and then veering slightly right along Aristotelous leads to Platia ton Evreon Martyron, named in memory of the 2000 Jews from Rhodes and Kos who were sent to the concentration camps in 1944. In amongst the shady trees is a black, granite obelisk in their honour.
Walking along Pindharou, the Church of Panagia tou Bourgou (Our Lady of the Bourg) is found opposite the Myron Gate. This church dating from the middle of the 14th Century originally had six chapels and seven vaulted tombs. Heading through the ruins and going straight on through the park to the Akandia Gate provides a useful shortcut for people heading to the Blue Star Ferry terminal. Back on Pindharou close to the walls of the old town, the Church of Agios Panteleinon (St. Panteleinon) was built in the 15th Century and was not converted into a mosque by the Turks during their conquest. The interior paintings are vivid and create a peaceful, calm feeling in visitors, as though the peaceful history of the church emanates from the pictures.
All the sights described so far are roughly in the northern part of the old town of Rhodes. The southern part has more narrow streets to investigate and fewer visible sights to use as aids to navigation - in other words, you will probably get lost, but this is great fun as it provides more of a sense of adventure when you do find a sight such as the Kai Kadosh Shalom synagogue, the Ibrahim Pasha mosque, the Rejep Pasha mosque, the Church of Agia Triada (Holy Trinity), and the Church of St Marina. The churches date from the 15th Century and the mosques from the 16th Century. On these streets, none of the scooters are locked overnight and bougainvillea is draped over the walls.
One historical excursion of note outside the old town is to head to Mandraki Harbour across whose entrance the Colossus of Rhodes is supposed to have stood. There are some photogenic windmills on the eastern side. The international airport on Rhodes makes this island the perfect start, or finish, to any trip to the Dodecanese Islands.