Rhodes Town

holiday report and Rhodes map

Rhodes Town

RHODES TOWN or RODOS is steeped in history and the narrow, cobbled streets of the Old Town and the castle are a magnet for day trippers who joining the holiday throngs holed up in the scores of Rhodes hotels.
With so much on offer within the city walls, the beaches of Rhodes tend to get overlooked. The main beach of Rhodes Town is just north of Mandraki harbour and reaches out to the northern tip of the island.
Long ranks of sunbeds sit nose to tail along the sand and shingle, linked by wooden duck boards and backed by a skyline of high rise hotels and the famous Rhodes' casino.
The Rhodes Town beach is also known as Elli beach. The best bit of the beach is rumoured to lie in front of the Mediterranean Hotel, although the sunbeds are crammed so tight here you may not see a great deal of sand.
Rhodes beach is very much what you could expect from a big city beach, dominated by the staggered line of hotels that tower behind. As it marches north it turns more to shingle than sand and the northern tip is little visited, just a barren swathe of stones that curves around the headland.
This is where the Rhodes Aquarium, rather ominously called the Hydro-biological Institute sits looking rather isolated on a small hill.
On the north-west side is another, less attractive but still popular beach, called Akti Miaouli. There are all the usual tourist facilities here, from toilets to showers and all the watersports you expect of a major holiday resort.
The coast north-west of Rhodes Town is particularly exposed to the north winds and breakers can come rolling in when the wind gets up. The old walled city of Rodos lies just south of Mandraki harbour where the old city walls are edged with trees.