Friday 25 September 2015

Photodiary • Rhodes, July 2015

Hello!
Sorry for the silence over here - College started back last week and lectures properly started again this week, so I've been completely run off my feet and pretty much in bed by 8pm every night. Hopefully I'll get back into a routine soon!

So at the beginning of July, Jordan and I went on our first big holiday together. We've been on all sorts of trips to the Lake District, Wales, and Cornwall, and we went to Belfast for our honeymoon, but we've never had a proper holiday abroad until this year. We decided to book a week in Rhodes, Greece, as it was just what we needed - a week on a gorgeously sunny island where we could literally do nothing. Anyone who knows me knows I don't usually like sitting around on holidays - if I've travelled that far, I want to explore! However we definitely needed this week of relaxation, and did still manage to fit in a couple of days of adventuring in between lazing by the pool. Here's some of my snaps from the week!

Pefkos
Our hotel was in the middle of Pefkos, which is essentially just a sort of resort town - it's just one main road really, with a few little roads leading down to the three beaches. You could get to pretty much anywhere in Pefkos if you walked for 5 - 10 minutes, which was ideal for our lazy holiday!

Our flight landed in Rhodes at about 3am, so by the time we got to our hotel it was just starting to go light. This was the beautiful view we got from the balcony of our apartment. As I always do, I'd been reading reviews on TripAdvisor a few weeks before we left, and lots of reviews said the same thing about the hotel - if you were willing to trek up the hill to the apartments at the top rather than the ones by the pool, you'd get absolutely amazing views of Pefkos and the mediterranean. I emailed requesting a sea view room, and voila!





Lee beach
St Thomas Bay






Pefkos had three beaches - the main one, Lee beach, being a long, thin stretch of sand and the most touristy of the three. Another thing I'd read on TripAdvisor before we travelled was to check out St. Thomas's bay instead - it was a lot smaller, but also a lot less crowded. One night after we'd eaten Jordan and I decided to walk down to the bay to watch the sunset (and so I could take a portrait in the sea). It was completely empty and just so peaceful!








Our hotel - Pefkos Beach Studios 

Lindos
I've actually been to Rhodes before with my mum - however, it was about 20 years ago, so obviously I don't really remember it (plus I had chickenpox for most of our time there so it wasn't the most successful of holidays.) However, I do have some sort of memory of a town in Rhodes with narrow, winding alleyways surrounded by whitewashed shops all leaning towards each other, and lots of donkeys. This was Lindos - and with us only staying ten minutes away, we had to take a day to go and have a look around there.


Our first stop was the acropolis. It's at the top of a rugged hill and the only way up is a steep, windy path that's made of very worn and slippery cobblestones (honestly, I did think I was going to fall to my death at various points on the way up, and I don't even have a problem with heights). If you can deal with the walk though, it is SO worth it for what's at the top. I think it cost us about €6 each to get in, but you can get in for free if you have a valid student card from any country (unfortunately we'd left ours back in England, but it's good to know for future reference!). It's heaven if you're a history geek as it's actually made up of a few different structures - if I'm remembering right, part of it is a temple of Athena from about 300 BCE, another part is a Roman temple, part is a medieval castle, and that's not even all of it! Even if you're not into the history side of it all, the views are absolutely breathtaking -

St Pauls bay 
view over Lindos town 


It's also great just for some fun touristy snaps too ;)






(more stray cats!)
After the walk back down from the acropolis, we had a wander through the labyrinth of shops and stalls -





the acropolis from below - this is the hill you're climbing if you want to go and see it! ;)




Rhodes old town
We also took a brief trip to the capital of the island, which is technically seen as two cities - the modern one, and the medieval one which is surrounded by walls, bridges and all sorts of fortifications which were all to protect Rhodes from the Ottoman empire. I didn't manage to get a photo of it but from the coast here, you could see the mountains of Turkey which was pretty cool (albeit a bit daunting looking!) Again, Rhodes old town is perfect for history lovers, and also the best place for shopping on the island! I didn't get too many photos here as it was about 35 degrees and I was melting far too much to shoot, but here's what I did manage to get:







Food
So in my Albania photo diary, I don't think I even mentioned the food except to say how much I hated it. The food here though, I can't even describe. It was amazing. So here's a few phone snaps of some of the gorgeous things we ate and drank - 









And that about sums up our week in Rhodes! I'd definitely recommend a trip there if you're looking for a relaxing, sunny holiday with just a bit of sightseeing in between!