Bicycle touring around Rhodes (Greece)

Cycling around Rhodes (Monolithos castle behind)

October/November is the time of year to get out of Whistler....

We decided to return to Greece and try a 7-night inn-to-inn bicycle trip around Rhodes island. Rhodes is one of the southernmost Greek islands, very close to Turkey. It is large enough for a good cycling trip, somewhat varied in terrain (flat and lots of mountains, and lots of green) with a vibrant main city (Rhodes town).

Our cycle trip covered approximately 250 km of cycling around the middle and southern half of Rhodes.

Itinerary with evening stops (most days we did the  shorter option, except Day 1)

Michelle opted for a regular 24-speed bicycle; David tried an E-bike for the first time. Given the frequent hills on the trip, this made for a happier David, and thus a happier Michelle.

The 7-night trip was organized by Omega Bike and Hike (of the Netherlands), although we booked it through our (now usual) agent "Rad & Reisen/Eurocycle". Each day, we would take off on our bikes (alone, as we were the only clients this week) with the day's itinerary/directions printed out (Omega also provided us GPX route files for use with our smartphone app -- a couple of times these proved indispensable); the Omega rep Ineeke would sometime later pickup our bags and deliver them to our next hotel. We never had a problem with bag delivery. For the most part, we were happy with our hotels, which ranged from very simple to quite luxurious (one was even an "all-inclusive" resort). All were very clean (however, one was not a "favourite" due to barking dogs, no screens for mosquitoes, and uncomfortable pillow). The cycling was at times tough (well, for  Michelle) due to hills; but mostly it was good. All biking was on roads shared with traffic, but most of these had very light traffic, so it did not seem a big deal.

We quickly grew to like Rhodes very much. The weather was perfect (22-27 degrees C), the people very friendly, the food great, and the scenery beautiful. The history is amazing, from Archaic to Hellenistic Greeks, Romans, Crusaders, the Ottomans, and 20th-century occupying Italians, all have left their stamp on the island. Natural scenery included beaches, mountains, many many olive trees, and vineyards (did we say that they make wonderful wine here in Rhodes?).

Day 1: Petaloudes/Valley of the Butterflies: there were none...

The first day, we cycled 49 km, and visited "Petaloudes" (Valley of the Butterflies), a major tourist attraction in the main tourist season. By October, the butterflies (actually, tiger moths) are no longer there. A long day, we were happy to be staying a second night at the same hotel (Hotel Vouras) in Kalavarda.

The second day had a lot of uphill riding, to Embonas at the base of Rhodes highest mountain, Ataviros. Also its best wine region.

Michelle conquering another hill...

After a particularly long hard hill, it was great to stop in Salakos for fresh-squeezed orange juice... 

We stopped at a small taverna in Salakos, after a hard hill. The freshly squeezed orange juice was a delight. And the very friendly woman running the taverna added cake and fruit (fresh figs and pomegranate) as a free bonus. (We actually returned to Salakos 10 days later to go hiking.)  Then it was back to the hills again to go up to Embonas.

Embonas was clearly oriented to wine, with wineries and winetasting everywhere. Our hotel was lovely, with a very refreshing swimming pool (perhaps a little cold, but after all that cycling, refreshing). We had our best wine in Embonas. (And we returned 11 days later, by car, to get some more.)

Pool at Hotel Ataviros, Embonas

Day 3 saw us riding to Apolakkia, via Monolithos. The first half was very hilly; the second half mostly downhill, except for the steep down/up detour to visit the Monolithos Castle.

Monolithos Castle was a Crusader Castle, destroyed by the Ottoman Turks.

Looking down to Monolithos Castle

Monolithos Castle

View from Monolithos Castle

Selfie: Monolithos Castle

It was a hard climb on the bikes (even on the Ebike) back up to the village of Monolithos, where we stopped for lunch and a beer at Christo's.

A well-deserved beer at lunch at Christo's in Monolithos

Fortunatly for our full stomachs, it was an easy downhill ride all the way to our next village/hotel: Apolakkia.

Amalia Hotel and Taverna, Apolakkia

Day 4 was to be a long day (in terms of distance: 52 km) but, as it turned out, mostly flat and easy south to Katavia then via Lachania ("Lahaina") to Lardos.  A short "unsurfaced" (not paved) section provided additional variety.

Michelle riding south from Apolakkia

 A little "off road" cycling, heading to Lachainia

Orange juice break in Lachaina: friendly retired priest "Papa Georgio"

Our hotel tonight, our 5th night of the bicycle tour, was changed last-minute to the "Sunrise Resort" in Lardos Beach, an all-inclusive resort. The drinks were free, as was the food. And there was a lot of food! Although plentiful, we found the food at the all-inclusive -- especially the Greek food -- to be nowhere near as good/flavourful as we had been eating at small tavernas along the way. Guests had no idea what they were missing.

 

Pools at the Sunrise Resort early in the morning: full of kids after 10 am...

We didn't get into the resort's pool, as it was too full of noisy, spashing kids (obviously having fun). The beach wasn't so inviting either. All-inclusives are just not our cup-of-tea.

Day 5 (of bike riding) was to take us to Archángellos, with a visit/stop at the famous Lindos. As it turned out, much of today's ride was not that pleasant: too many hills, some rough unsurfaced roads, too much traffic, and an over-crowded jam-packed visit (cut short, it was so crowded) to Lindos.

The Acropolis of Lindos comes into view as we ride (uphill...)

Beautiful St. Paul's Bay (Lindos)

Bougainvillea in streets (passageways) of Lindos

In Lindos (away from the crowds)

Cats are everywhere in Lindos (as they are elsewhere in Greece)

Busloads (and busloads) of tourists jam into Lindos

These  poor donkeys have to carry some pretty "heavy" tourists up to the Acropolis (David was NOT one of them)

We found the huge crowds of tourists at Lindos just too much, so we got on our bicycles and made a hasty departure -- well, not too hasty 'cause we had a very steep hill to get back up. (We expected we would return to Lindos the fllowing weeks... we did, sort of.)

About 1 hour from Archángellos, we got off the busy main road (especially busy with busloads of tourists) and the remainder of the ride was pleaseant, albeit with a stiff climb up to Archángellos.

Our hotel in Archángellos could have been OK (the woman running it was very nice), but the windows had no mosquito screens, the AC wasn't turned on, the bed and pillows uncomfortable, and the local dogs barked all night.  But we did have a good dinner and met our favourite dog "Lola" in Archángellos.

Lola: 18 years old, deaf, and not seeing very well, and very camera shy. But very friendly.

Our last day of thee bicycle tour took us from Archángellos back to Kalavarda on the west coast of Rhodes. With the exception of a couple hills (one very long), it was to be a pleasant ride.

The ride took us up to Elousa, which was built by the Italian occupiers in the 20s/30s (the Italians "colonized" all the Dodecanese Islands, until the islands returned to Greece after World War 2). Elousa wa a strange spooky place. (After the Italians "left", the buildings were used for a tuberculosis sanitarium until the 1970s.) The builldings are abandoned and decaying.

Decaying Italian buildings of Elousa

From Elousa, it was downhill or flat all the way back to Kalavarda (our starting and ending point). Ten minutes before Kalavarda, we stopped at a taverna for lunch to celebrate the end of an excellent bicycle tour (no problems, no accidents!).

The next day, we went into Rhodes Town, with its fantastic medieval walled "Old Town". As it turned out, we enjoyed it so much, we based ourselves in Rhodes "New Town" for 11 days.

See the next blog post....

Rhodes Old Town: Palace of the Grand Master: Once the headquarters of the Order of the Knights of St John