We’re heading out to Lindos to see their Acropolis. It’s a little under one and a half hours by bus. Our first stop, however, is at 📍Monk Coffee for breakfast. I found it by searching for “Roasters” in Google Maps. The coffee and breakfast didn’t disappoint. If we weren’t leaving very early tomorrow, we would be making a stop there for coffee. The breakfast fare was limited as we showed after the lunch crowd (around 13:00). Our skewed schedule does have its downside.
We learned a lot about Rhodes’ bus services by trying to catch the bus to one city. First, Google Maps will give you bus transit information, but it’s mostly wrong. The route seems accurate, but the schedule and route numbers don’t work. There are multiple bus companies, and for Lindos, you need to choose the right one. Second, it takes a while to mentally adjust to the fact that you’re given a ticket for a specific bus number, not a route number. So the same route at 13:00 might be bus 12, and at 14:00 might be bus 33. We’re used to buses displaying a route number; all buses going on the same route display the same number. Going from Rhodes to Lindos, you wait at a bus stop, but instead of a route number in big bright numbers, you’re looking for a sticker that’s essentially the bus inventory number. Confused? Don’t worry, after a couple of rides, it‘ll make sense.
Lindos is a small town with white houses. A welcome preview of what we’re promised for most of the smaller island cities. The walk to the main town square from the bus station is an easy downhill walk that takes about 5 minutes. From there, it’s a little under 10 minutes uphill to the Acropolis. It might take a little longer if the streets are crowded, as there are shops along almost the entire way. If you use Google Maps to guide you, you can go up the same way the donkeys take to ride people up. Yup, you can ride a donkey the one-kilometre walk if you’re too lazy or have kids who beg you for a “horsey” ride. The route is almost devoid of tourist shops, but they are replaced with donkey turds, so pick your routes accordingly.
The Acropolis itself is smaller than Athens’ but lets you get closer to most monuments and does provide a bit more context with helpful signage. It took us about half an hour to go through it. The area is beautiful, and it’s worth the trip. Having known the size of the site ahead of time, we might have gotten up earlier and made it a beach and Acropolis day. Lindos has a beautiful beach if you head all the way down the hill.
Before making our way back to Rhodes, we explored some of Lindos. The city is quite charming when you can find a small side street without tourist shops. There are a couple of places that the Routard recommends, but our schedule didn’t allow us to try any of them, as we left Lindos as the siesta was ending.
The trip left me a bit concerned about my phone battery level. One thing I learned on our hike in Corfu is that my wireless charger is super practical, but the phone won’t charge its battery when it’s too warm, and 32°C is too warm for a change to occur. Considering the hot weather, I left it behind and only use it in air-conditioned settings.
Getting off the bus, we stopped at 📍Gelato:Punto. Their Gelato didn’t get better, but we were hungry and too close to dinner time to indulge in a gyros or other street food. We stopped at the apartment to recharge and double-check our transportation to the airport arrangement with the hotel. Good thing too, as they had the wrong time and would have picked us up at the time we needed to arrive at the airport instead of the time we requested to leave the hotel (6:45) for the 20-minute drive.
We skipped apéro and went straight to dinner at 📍Ouzokafenes. Located amongst a large number of touristy restaurants, we were lured there by the Routard’s review but failed to read between the lines. The house wine and mezze were great. We opted for the mixed grill platter, having enjoyed a similar one in Corfu. That was our mistake, in a peak tourist restaurant location, the mains are highly adapted. The meat had barely any spice in it. We should have stuck with a bunch of mezze (as we later realized the Routard suggested). The terrace remained pleasant, the cats were friendly, so we chalked our mix grill mistake to the lesson learned category and managed an overall enjoyable evening.
We’re getting up way too early tomorrow (6:00) for our Island hopper flight to Astypalea. The original plan was to fly back to Athens and grab a connection to Astypalea there, but the connection time was limited (an hour). Our experience getting to Corfu created enough doubt that we resolved to sit in a small propeller plane, an ART 42-300, a close cousin to the trusted Q400 propeller plane I flew from Quebec to Toronto for many years. Hopefully it’ll be relatively comfortable.
Places
Monk Coffee/The Pure Roasters · Ethnarchou Makariou 14, Rodos 851 00, Greece
Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps.
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Gelato Punto · Averof 6, Rodos 851 00, Greece
Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps.
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Ouzokafenes · Menekleous 17, Rodos 851 00, Greece
Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps.
maps.app.goo.gl
