A Greek odyssey – Day 2

Continued from Day 1

The agenda for the day was Lindos and the old town part of Rhodes. We had planned a public bus ride for the former, but I was thrilled to see a poster at the reception – that the hotel arranged a bus trip to Lindos for 22 euros per person. The joy was shortlived, since it operated on every day except Saturday! Such terrible luck!  I asked for directions to the bus stand, thankfully it was only 10 minutes away by walk. All of this had happened the previous night. From the time table, we had decided to get on the 9 AM bus. Despite directions, a map, and 20 minutes in hand, we got a little confused with the route. Thankfully, I spotted the bus station and we hopped on just in time after getting tickets. (5 euros per person) As we sat waiting for the bus to start, we saw an elegantly dressed lady talking to the guy at the ticket counter. We thought she might be a regular and wondered why she was commuting on a Saturday. She turned out to be the driver!

The 1 hr 20 mins drive took us through wide roads in town followed by narrow but clean streets in the suburbs, then a countryside complete with goats to finally, an awesome view of Lindos. (you have to walk back a bit for the kind of shot below)

A 10 minute walk took us to the city square. Unlike the feel I got at Trip Advisor, the place has plenty of options for hanging around, shopping and dining. The Lindos version of the acropolis is a little climb away, and a popular means of transport is a donkey! The entry (to the acropolis, not the donkey) costs 6 euros per person and the place, as well as the path leading to it, offers fantastic views. At the Acropolis, there are temples to various gods. We walked down to the beach, 5 minutes from the square. It had some good lunching options (with a view of the Acropolis) but we had already made up our mind on Kalypso. On the way back to the square, we did find the way to Kleoboulos’ tomb, but since Trip Advisor had mentioned a 2 hour walk, we passed.

The guy at Kalypso was super friendly and when we said we were from India, immediately wanted to know the name of a particular movie. He narrated a typical brothers-lost-reunited 80s story, ending with a googly – a song he claimed was from the film – which turned out to be Aati Kya Khandala! Classified under #WTF. Though he looked genuine, I wondered how many times he had enacted this scene before! The place, and the food was excellent – a fantastic salad, and vine leaves filled with minced meat, washed down with the recommended local beer, and fresh orange juice.

Some amount of shopping later, we got on the 2.30 bus to Rhodes, which was extremely crowded. We both slept all the way. On reaching Rhodes, we walked around the port and Old Town, and in the process of finding the Palace of the Grandmasters, got utterly lost in the maze of lovely cobbled streets! But we did manage to locate two of our intended dinner options – Island Lipsi and Socratous Garden – (check) utterly by accident. We then bought me a fake Puma ‘jacket’ for 10 euros and wandered into another maze – this time complete with castles and musicians. We desperately looked around for a main road, and just as we found it, also found a signpost which announced that we had exited the Grandmasters Palace! Lesson – get internet from home! (I could find no open outlets of Wind Telecom)

D corrected my sense of direction in time and thankfully found the way back to Old Town and the bus station – only 2 minutes away, it turned out! Some more shopping and we walked back to the hotel. I had a bad headache and slept off, and ended up skipping dinner in the process!