Rhodes Town II

The Knights’ Hospital houses the Archaeological Museum (Tues-Sun 8:30-3 pm, 2.40 euros) whose main exhibits are of decorated pottery from the 6th-7th centuries BC; the Hellenic Statue Gallery has a sculpture of Aphrodite Bathing. The Decorative Arts Collections (Tues-Sun 8:30-3 pm, 1.50 euros) is mainly furniture from Dodecanese houses, with carved chest lids and doors with painted mythological and historic themes; embroideries and costumes are also exhibited, as well as a reconstruction of a traditional room.

Ruins of Temple of Aphrodite (3rd cent. BC) are found in Plateia Symis; fragments of a Temple of Dionysos are located behind the Ionian and Popular Bank.

The Byzantine Museum (Tues-Sun, 8:30 am-3 pm.1.50 euros) houses medieval icons and frescoes taken from ruined chapels on Rhodes and Halki; a complete fresco cycle from the domes of Tharri monastery (1624). Housed in the old cathedral of the Knights.

The Turkish Quarter
There are many mosques and Islamic chapels (mescids) found in the Old Town, the Suleyman Mosque dating from the first year of Ottoman rule of Rhodes (1522), built on the site of a Church of the Apostles, and rebuilt during the 19th century. The Turkish district is south of Sokratous St, many of its houses with wooden balconies. The Mustapha Mosque and the Mustapha Hamam (Turkish bath) are on Plateia Arionos, the latter built in 1764 and remodeled in the 1990’s.. Heated by olive wood, and with mosaic floors, marble fountains, it has separate women and men’s sections. The Ottoman Library (Mon-Fri, 7:30 am-2:30 pm and 6-9 pm; Sat and Sun 8 am-noon, tip to custodian) built 1793, with rare Persian and Arabian medieval manuscripts and illuminated copies of the Koran.

Square of the Jewish Martyrs
A memorial in this square commemorates the 1800 Jews from Rhodes and Kos who were deported to Nazi concentration camps; Khalal Shalom Synagogue,the one remaining synagogue of the four in Rhodes Town..also maintained as a memorial, with a museum in back with photos of Jews and Jewish community life in Rhodes before the deportations.

Our Lady of the Bourg was once the largest Catholic church on Rhodes, built by the Knights in 1480, in commemoration of their thwarting of the Ottomans.