On the road to Rhodes....

I got up early and caught a 9:30 AM flight to the island of Rhodes.   I had already booked a room for a few nights in Old Town, a special section of this Medevial city with Byzantine, French and Spanish influences stretching back to the Crusades.   The Old Town area is surrounded by a still-intact 10-foot thick stone wall complete with turrets, lookout towers and even a castle.   It is brimming with vitality and energy.   Lots of shops, winding pathways, hidden restaurants, ice cream parlours, bars, and hotels that cater to tourists who come from the air as well as those who are regularly discharged daily from the huge cruise ships that pull in here.   In the harbor today was the impressive Queen Elizabeth II of the Cunard Line.   Many of the restaurants an bars are protected from the sun by heavily-leafed wild fig trees that seem to be everywhere.  It's coming up on the end of the tourist season for these shop keepers, and so they're usually standing at the entrance to their stores to encourage anyone passing by to check out their wares.   Rhodes is similar to the shopping areas on Santorini only with wider streets.   The Medevial castle stone works are an added delight and their architecture intrudes into the landscape in unexpected ways.  You can only walk or ride motorbikes in Old Town.   If you're staying at a hotel, you'll have to drag your luggage down the street.   Taking the bus to Lindos tomorrow morning.   There's an acropolis there that's actually older than the one in Athens.  Took some pictures of the entrance to the harbor where the famous 100-foot high Colossus of Rhodes once planted his feet.   It was said that ships had to sail into the harbor between his gigantic legs.  More later....