Ojemba Meets the Knights

Rhodes, Greece.

Dan Brown’s Da Vinci’s Code got a lot of people excited about the Catholic Church, Knights Templar and conspiracies. For anyone intrigued by the Crusades, the rise and fall of the Medieval Knights—the Hospitallers and Knights of St. John or Knight Templar—Rhodes is the PLACE—maybe next to a visit to Malta. 

The Grand Master was the head of the Knights. One of the main attractions of Rhodes is the Grand Master’s Palace.  It was largely destroyed when the Ottomans took over, but it seems to have been rebuilt to get back to its original stature by the Italians during WWII. There is no doubt that the Grand Master, whoever it was at a time—was important and breathed fear across the world. 


These guys fought for Jerusalem—for the Christian church, and served as protector and paramedic for Christians on pilgrimage to Jerusalem. They started off on the good books of the Pope; in fact at some point, they were almost sovereign, exempt from taxation and dues to any government and territories. Kings and royalties were encouraged to donate cash and assets to them—in fact felt obligated to them—because they fought the “good fight.”  As with a lot of things, in some instances, they became so powerful that they threatened the Roman authority. The church had to cut them down to size. The leaders of the Templars were burn at stakes, while the Hospitalliar remained in the good books of the church.

Rhodes was one of the Knight Hospitallier and St. John headquarters.  This was Knight Hospitaller’s last stand before their heroic fall to Sultan Sulayman the Magnificient’s rootless soldiers—(200,000 Ottoman soldiers against 7,000 knights).

You have not seen an old fortified city until you have seen the old city of Rhodes! The Knights built this to withstand all sorts of enemies, with layers of secure walls. No wonder it took the Ottoman thousands of soldiers and years of besieging this place before it fell.  The palace and the church were destroyed but during WWII, the Italians occupied Rhodes and Mussolini restored the Grandmasters palace (evidently for himself but alas he did not get a chance to vacation here) to what it is today.

By the main gate to the Grand Masters Palace:

Stairs in the Grand Master's Palace:

One of the tricks that worked out for us during the tour of the Palace is to hitch on to a great tour guide. We happened on an English speaking, great tour guide leading a good sized group. We stayed a little behind, but close enough to hear everything he had to teach about the place. The strategy worked out perfectly. We all started at the entry to the palace, and left the palace together. We even learned a lot of things that you couldn’t read or quite get from guide books and brochures.

The Old City
At the central square in Rhodes--old city

Cobble stone street leading to the Palace and Church

Big eyes watching

Inside the Rhodes archeological museum

Rhodes  is one of the most visited islands in Greece. It has Old town and the New city. Most tourists seem to stay in the old city. It is the most commercialized, tourist- obsessed small town. Everything seems aimed to separate you from your money. From the guy showing off the cute and smart parrots, to the young kid playing music on the accordion—everyone has the same goal.

Eating and drinking and playing with parrots - see beer boot

Following our short stay here, we got on an overnight ferry to Crete. 
We got to the wrong pier 30 minutes before ferry departure - we had to take a taxi to the boat—for we would have missed the boat if we tried to walk to the ferry rather than pay the 7 Euro Taxi fare. (We thought, after all, it was around the corner).  But we got on the ferry - so on to Crete