After walking to Rhodes Town and back (22,000 steps!) most of yesterday was taken up with applying various ointments and liniments to our mangled knees and trotters.
Sensibly this morning, we opted to take the bus into town for our free visit to the palace and museum. Built in the 14th century it was the administrative centre of the Knights of St John of Jerusalem ( aka the Knights Hospitallers aka The Knights of St John of Malta - very dodgy if you ask me) and the fairly ritzy home of the order's Grand Masters (so much for the vow of poverty...) between 1309 and 1522, when the pesky Ottomans took over Rhodes.
They used the building mainly as a fortress and prison (not having any Grand Masters to house) until 1912, despite it being blown up when lightning struck the gunpowder store in 1856. (Take note: NEVER store your gunpowder in bulk without adequate protection from lightning)
From 1912 to 1948, Rhodes was occupied by the Italians, (a source of huge shame to Rhodians, and rightly so. I mean, the Italians.....really....??).
Anyway, the Italians rebuilt the broken bits of the palace to make it into a fitting home for both Mussolini and King Victor Emmanuel 111, so all's well that ends well I suppose......
The palace was stuffed with some very nice mosaics (looted from Kos in the 1930's.... what did you expect???) and questionable sculptures:
There's only so much you can take of this sort of thing, even if it is free, and we fled the palace, for the archaeological museum (free entry)
The museum is housed in the former hospital building of the multiple-identity Knights. The exhibits lean heavily toward the pottery side of things, which in all honesty, I couldn't be bothered to photograph (don't pretend you'd have been interested)
It has beautiful gardens though, with more mosaics ( not looted ones)
Cultural commitments completed, (and free of charge, don't forget) we boarded the bus back to our hotel and happy hour.
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