Rhodes - Discover the Unknown Rhodes

Rhodes, the island born of the Sun
According to the myth, when the gods of Olympus
divided the earth among them they forgot about the Sun
God Helios who was still on his travels in his chariot of fire.
Helios did not take offence but, looking down from high in
the sky, he noticed an island that was still submerged by the
waters. With the help of Poseidon he caused it to emerge
and thus Rhodes appeared, the island of the roses. The
name of the island is a homage to the nymph Rodon,
daughter of Aphrodite, from whose love with Helios seven
sons would be born who were to colonize many islands in
the Aegean. The myth also tells that the first inhabitants of
Rhodes were the Telhines, children of the sea, amphibious
beings who were great inventors and craftsmen (creators of
the first bronze statues) and experts in magic.
Seen from above the island looks like a great green
leaf floating on the waters, or perhaps a dolphin leaping the
waves. Historys succession of events from the Neolithic
Age to the Mycenaean Era, from the Doric to the Classical
and Hellenistic periods, from the dominion of the Knights of
St John to the Ottoman occupation have all left their mark
and testimonies on the island soil.
A small guidebook like this one cannot, certainly,
hope to be exhaustive in describing every last one of this
lands many treasures (the most densely packed in all the
Aegean), but it aims to offer suggestions that might help the
reader to come to understand and love the beauty of the
antique and modern traces of the island of Rhodes, of its
villages, churches, monasteries and castles and of the
landscape with its seas, forests, springs and mountains.
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