It is possible to do day boat trips around the other small bays of Faliraki, including Kathara Bay, which is one of the most picturesque on the island, and has a nudist beach at one end. Anthony Quinn Bay is famous for the filming of The Guns of Navarone. There are also several, less developed beaches between Faliraki and Lindos, such as the pebbled Traganou beach, and all the beaches are desirably clean with crystal waters.

As mentioned previously, Faliraki is well known for its nightlife and is popular with younger visitors seeking lots of action, both day and night. Bar Street and Club Street in Faliraki live up to their name and reputation as a paradise for young clubbers and pubbers. The choice of dance floors and watering holes is abundant. Arguably the best bar in Faliraki is Ziggy’s, home of the famous (or to some infamous) ‘Fishbowl’, a very large cocktail guaranteed to knock you senseless. For rocking karaoke there is the King’s Garden Bar (KGB) or the Bedrock Bar. George’s Bar is a favourite with football fans who want to keep up with the action on huge screens, and keep on partying. The most popular club in town is Q Club, which opens from midnight to 5am and is always jam-packed: it features a house/trance room, a chart/cheese room and R&B/Garage room. Top London DJs feature regularly at Bed, a massive club that holds about 2,000 revellers.

Active holidaymakers who want a break from soaking up the sun on the golden sands can choose from a variety of fun pursuits on offer at the two large watersport centres on the beach, everything from banana-boat rides and pedalos to bungee-jumping. The crystal clear waters are perfect for scuba diving and snorkeling.

Discover Rhodes - Your holidays guide on the Greek island of Rhodes (Rodos).

At almost 260 nautical miles away from the port of Piraeus has daily ferryboat connections with the mainland Greece. There are numerous flights every day connecting Rhodes with Athens, Thessaloniki, Heraklion in Crete and with some of the smaller neighboring islands. During the holiday season (usually April to October) there are plenty direct connections with the major European cities and a large number of charter flights.

The terrain is mainly mountainous, the highest mountain is Ataviros at almost the center of the island. Olive trees, vines and other fruit producing trees are cultivated all over the island. Rhodes is graced with an exceptional mediterranean climate, mild winters and sunny cool summers thanks to its sea breeze and the west winds (meltemi). The island has sunshine during most of the year. As it is said: “There is hardly a day without sun”. The sunlight makes the island’s wine exquisite and gives the ibiscus (flower-symbol of Rhodes) their special, vivid red color.

Rhodes is an extremely popular destination that appeals to people of all ages. Families, couples and groups of singles all enjoy the island for relaxation, the range of activities available and the nightlife. The combination of sun, beautiful nature, clean sea waters, exceptional archaeological and historical monuments, modern tourist infrastructures and relaxed life style are some the reasons that made Rhodes one of the most renown vacation spots in the world attracting thousands of holidaymakers year after year.

Rhodes has brilliant beaches, some of the best in the Mediterranean (Tsambika beach), covered in golden sands leading down to the waters edge. Many of them are organized with plenty of sunbeds and parasols available to hire and offer a number of water sports (banana boat rides, jet-skiing, water-skiing, windsurfing, surfing, snorkeling, scuba diving, parasailing, paragliding). The island is one of the top locations in the world for kite and wind surfing. However if you are just looking for a place to relax then you will find a number of quiet beaches, most of them in the southern part, that you can enjoy.

Discover Rhodes - Your holidays guide on the Greek island of Rhodes (Rodos).

The preparations for the celebration of the Resurrection start on Holy Thursday, the day that commemorates the Last Supper of Jesus with the Apostles. In the morning, groups of children visit all the neighbourhoods of the town, carrying baskets, singing and collecting flowers to decorate the bier of Christ. On that day housewives traditionally will prepare tsourekia (sweet buns resembling brioche) and colored eggs with special red dyes. Since the antiquity, the egg signifies the renewal of life while the red color symbolizes the blood of Christ.

Good Friday is the most sacred day of the Holy Week, the day of the culmination of the passion of Christ with the deposition from the cross and Christ’s burial. It is a day of mourning throughout Greece. Housewives and children will go to church in the morning to prepare the Epitaphios, a wooden catafalque² elaborately carved that represents the Tomb of Christ where His body will be put after the Apokathelosis (Deposition from the Cross). They will richly decorate it with spring flowers mostly white, red, and purple, until it is covered by the flowers in its entirety and then it will be sprinkled with flower petals and rosewater, decorated with candles and ceremonially censed as a mark of respect.

In the evening everything is silenced by the sound of slow bells tolling, lamenting the death of Christ. The air is full of the scent of livani a church incense made from frankincense and the fragrance of the spring flowers that cover the Epitaphios. Processions of Epitaphios are carried through almost all the streets of the towns and villages of Greece. Then, at about 11pm, the restaurants will fill up suddenly as everyone rushed to break their fasting in a traditional, Lent-friendly meal of seafood – grilled vinegar octopus, calamari rings, giant prawns served with their heads intact, and other items bring the evening to a close.

On Easter Saturday morning, preparations start for the festive dinner of the night of the Resurrection and housewives cook mayeritsa – a tripe and herbs soup only prepared at this time of the year. Shortly before midnight, people will gather in church holding white candles which they will light with the Holy Light ³ distributed by the priest. When the latter chants Christós Anesti (Christ is risen) the atmosphere will fill with loud noise, roaring cheers, and exploding firecrackers. The people exchange wishes with their lighted candles and the scent of incense and rush home or to their favorite restaurant. With the Holy Light of the candles they thrice make the sign of the cross on the door post over the front door of their houses for good luck. Then they will all gather around the festively laid table to crack the red eggs ⁴ and feast on the traditional mayeritsa. After the long fast, this soup is soothing to the stomach and a gentle break from the fast.

On Easter Sunday morning, in many parts of the country lamb is prepared on the spit. In other regions, the meat for the Easter table – lamb or kid – is roasted in the oven. There is a festive atmosphere everywhere and people drink retsina, eat and dance usually until late into the night.

Greek Orthodox Easter photo gallery.

The 2013 Greek Orthodox Easter is celebrated on May 5th, more than a month later from the respective Catholic festivities. If you wish to calculate the Greek Easter dates you must take into account that:

• It must be based on the Julian calendar, not the Gregorian one.
• It must be after the Jewish holiday of Passover.
• It must be on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring Equinox, which for this purpose is fixed as March 21st.

Notes

1. The Greek Orthodox church is part of the Eastern Orthodox church. Until 1054, the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches were one body.
2. Catafalque: a raised structure on which the body of a deceased person lies or is carried in state.
3. The Holy Light kept in the Greek Orthodox Church of the Resurrection in Jerusalem. Read also The miracle of the Holy Light.
4. A funny custom, an egg smashing competition called tsougrisma. Each person chooses one of the red hard-boiled eggs to crack against someone else’s. The person whose egg doesn’t crack is considered to have good luck for the rest of the year. The egg symbolizes the new life of the Resurrection. The cracking of the egg is symbolic of Christ’s emergence from the tomb
5. For an intense discussion of calculating Easter in general, with a short section on the special difficulties of calculating Greek Easter, see Claus Tondering’s detailed and long Calendar FAQ.

Discover Rhodes - Your holidays guide on the Greek island of Rhodes (Rodos).

As the TripAdvisor’s recent survey showed, Rhodes remains one the most attractive European holiday destinations. In fact, Rhodes came fifth most popular holiday destination worldwide, according to this survey.

Rhodes is famous for its monuments representing a long history of over 2400 years. Its unique medieval Old Town is the largest inhabited medieval settlement in Europe and a World Heritage Site. The island is also famous for its pristine beaches that received 34 Blue Flag awards in 2012 (England: 79 in total / Greece: 403), rich physical scenery (eco parks) and modern tourist infrastructures.

Discover Rhodes - Your holidays guide on the Greek island of Rhodes (Rodos).

Symi sits tantalisingly close to the Turkish coastline, and in past times, enjoyed great prosperity due to the sponge industry and ship-building. This is now in decline, with the sponge stalls selling imported articles due to massive over-farming of the sea bed and the shipwrights finding their prices undercut by larger concerns on Kos and Rhodes.
The island reputedly enjoys the hottest climate of anywhere in Greece, and the day I visited bore testament to that statement, with the mercury hitting 43°C on the harbour-side. It is a totally laid-back, relaxed little island with no more than a handful of hotels and businesses, all down to one inescapable fact; it has no water. This has to be ferried in from Rhodes at great expense, meaning that the existing tourist capacity is unlikely to develop unless ways can be found to store water on this arid outpost of the Dodecanese.

Our neighbours across the balcony said, “You must see Symi; It’s beautiful.”
Caroline and sailing don’t mix, so I booked a solo ticket to see this enchanting island, just a couple of miles from the Turkish coast, a 2-hour sail north from Rhodes Town.

The harbour in Symi Town, or Yialos, to give it its proper name, is nevertheless bustling, with its resident fishing boats, tour ferries, and kaiki depositing streams of visitors onto the jetty. The town is built in a steep-sided ravine, with the old town of Horio situated halfway up the mountainside, much of this sadly now deserted.

Yialos boasts some lovely architecture, and the vision of the neoclassical dwellings as you enter the harbour is a sight to behold, truly picture-postcard beautiful. I explored the new town and found some fabulous hokhlaki (pebble-mosaic) pavements and courtyards, as well as the old nautical museum, the bell-tower on the west quayside, and several very steep open-air staircases leading to private properties, as well as the old town.

The monastery of Taxiarchis Mihail Panormitis is worth visiting, and this was the second port-of-call for our day trip. The ferry sounded its klaxon as we entered the tiny harbour, and we were welcomed by a complicated peal of the monastery’s bells (my apologies to the campanologists if this is the wrong term).

Symi assaults the senses in every way, and as we waved farewell and sailed back to Rhodes Town, I’m certain that everyone on board had had a day to remember.

Quick Tips:
Due to its relative remoteness from Rhodes (its nearest Greek neighbour), few people holiday on Symi. Therefore, as a holiday destination, it has little to offer the visitor other than its peace and quiet and a scattering of bars, shops, and tavernas.
As mentioned, Symi is the hottest place in Greece, and people were visibly flaking as they ambled around Yialos, many obviously having brought no water to see them through the day. Take at least a litre of water with you to avoid dehydration. I always put two 500ml plastic bottles of water into the freezer compartment the night before a trip and tuck these away at the bottom of the rucksack. With luck, this will keep the brunt of the sun away and ensure a steady stream of ice-cold refreshment as the water defrosts.

I tend to tan easily without burning, but walking around here was getting uncomfortable after an hour or so, so take a T-shirt to protect the shoulders. Remember, too, that the sea breezes give a false sense of security, and several fellow passengers were red by the time we got back to Rhodes Town.

Best Way To Get Around:
Symi can only be reached by ferry from Rhodes and Kos. The Symi sails from the commercial harbour at Rhodes Town every morning at 9am. You can take a tourist kaikia or the “jet boat,” which covers the trip in an hour. A day trip return on the Symi is around 20€ if booked direct, or around 30€ via a travel bureau. The tourist kaikia charge around 30€, but this will include lunch and an opportunity to swim.
Once there, Symi has just two “main” roads and half a dozen taxis. Car hire is not available (the island is just too small), but scooter hire can be taken up at a very costly 20€ a day. During high season, a shuttle bus runs from Yialos to Pedi every hour on the hour for the princely fare of .60.

For those who elect to stay for a week or more, Symi is a walker’s paradise, with dirt roads and rough tracks leading to most of the monasteries dotted about the island. These tracks afford marvellous sea views as they snake around the craggy headlands, with Turkey little more than a stone’s throw away.

Discover Rhodes - Your holidays guide on the Greek island of Rhodes (Rodos).

Discover Rhodes - Your holidays guide on the Greek island of Rhodes (Rodos).

As Gastronomy is set to be a key aspect of the Greek tourism,  the concept of this first event of gastronomic co-creations as an extension of Brusselicious’ year of gastronomy, will highlight the culinary values of the Greek cuisine. The project will take place from 29th of March to 2nd of May 2013 (every Tuesday and every Friday) in trendy and well known restaurants in Brussels.

Discover Rhodes - Your holidays guide on the Greek island of Rhodes (Rodos).

“The families were celebrating Clean Monday, the first day of Lent for eastern Christians when kites are flown by children and adults in honor of the festival. As I watched the fathers and mothers guiding and helping their kids with their kites, I felt homesick. Memories of my childhood days came rushing back to me,” she said. “The Greeks are also family oriented, just like us Filipinos. It was a festive and joyful atmosphere.”

Discover Rhodes - Your holidays guide on the Greek island of Rhodes (Rodos).

The port of Piraeus (or Pireàs as pronounced in Greek) is the main hub for the Greek islands. It is a large port covering an extended part of the city of Pireas and it can be rather confusing to find your way around. There is a map you can download from the Greek Ministry of Mercantile Marine. Notice that all ferries to Rhodes and the Dodecanese islands depart from Port Gate E1.

There are numerous sites that are offering online booking for ferry tickets to Rhodes or other Greek islands. We do recommend to use them for your bookings but notice that you can purchase tickets from these sites at most for two months in advance (remember that the port code for Rhodes is ROD). You can get tickets via a travel agent in your country but it must have a Greek Travel Agent permit. You can also buy tickets directly from the port of Piraeus. You don’t have to worry much about availability if you are not traveling in high season (July and August) if you remember to avoid the weekends. There is a ticketing office at the Port Gate E1, in front of the ferries dock. If you’re traveling through or from Italy, there is a shipping company that has ferries that connect both Italy to Greece and Piraeus to Rhodes so you can buy your tickets in Italy at port of Ancona or Bari. There should not be any variation in charges between online bookings and at travel agencies, but the ticket might be cheaper when you buy directly from the port (depending on availability).

The journey can be long, from 12 to 18 hours. This is because the ferries stop to a number of islands before arriving in Rhodes. Usually the departure is in the afternoon (6-7 p.m.), so during most of the travel you will have the time to sleep. There are also some daily schedules that can be tiring but you can consider it as a mini cruise. You will have the opportunity to enjoy the views and photograph some of the most beautiful Aegean islands. Currently there are not high speed ferries operating.

During the winter the ferry schedules are not very fit and there are cancelation due to bad weather. As the season opens (from mid April), schedules begin to increase in number and become more reliable. Usually companies release their schedules on a weekly basis, so be warned, schedules found online may not be very accurate.

Blue Star Ferries: Skevos Travel
ANEK Lines (Crete): Tsagaris Travel
Dodekanisos Seaways (Symi).

Discover Rhodes - Your holidays guide on the Greek island of Rhodes (Rodos).

A documentary narrates the story of this school together with the story of the Rhodians during the previous century and the difficult times under the Italian occupation (1912-1947), when greek language was banned.

Video: http://vimeo.com/60377928

Discover Rhodes - Your holidays guide on the Greek island of Rhodes (Rodos).