Rhodes Old Town is a walled medieval city raised by the Knights Hospitaller between 1309 and 1522. Its intact fortifications enclose the Street of the Knights, the Grand Master’s Palace and the old Jewish quarter, while layers of Ottoman, Italian and wartime history sit close beneath the medieval stone.
At a glance
Rhodes Old Town is often described as the most completely preserved medieval walled city in Europe. It occupies the site of the ancient city where the Colossus of Rhodes, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, is said to have stood before an earthquake brought it down in 226 BCE. No trace of the statue survives, and even the question of where exactly it stood, at the harbour mouth or on land nearby, remains unresolved.
The Knights Hospitaller, expelled from the Holy Land after the fall of Acre in 1291, took Rhodes from Byzantine rule in 1309 and held it as an independent military state until 1522, when Suleiman the Magnificent forced their surrender after a six-month siege. Their walled city survives largely intact, with the Street of the Knights, the Grand Master’s Palace, roughly four kilometres of fortifications and eleven gates. The Old Town is inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, listed in 1988.
Key facts
- Street of the Knights: a 200-metre cobbled street built in the 1440s, lined by the auberges of the Knights’ national tongues, among them Spain, France, England, Italy, Germany and Provence.
- Grand Master’s Palace: built 1309–1346 as the seat of the Order of St John, destroyed by an ammunition explosion in 1856, rebuilt by the Italians in 1939–1940.
- Walls: around four kilometres of intact medieval fortification with eleven gates and seven towers.
- D’Amboise Gate: built in 1512 by Grand Master Emery d’Amboise, regarded as the finest surviving Knights’ fortification.
- Kahal Shalom Synagogue: built in 1577 in the Judería quarter, the oldest functioning synagogue in Europe.
History
The ancient city of Rhodes was home to the Colossus, a bronze statue of Helios roughly 33 metres high, built between 294 and 282 BCE by the sculptor Chares of Lindos. It stood for only 54 years before an earthquake toppled it in 226 BCE; the Romans left the wreckage on the ground for centuries, reportedly on the advice of an oracle, until the Arab caliph Muawiyah I captured Rhodes in 654 and sold the bronze debris to a merchant, said to have needed hundreds of camels to carry it away. Rhodes later passed through Roman and Byzantine rule.
In 1309 the Knights Hospitaller, driven from the Holy Land after the fall of Acre in 1291, took Rhodes from Byzantine control and built the walled city that survives today, completing the Street of the Knights and the Grand Master’s Palace over the following decades. A first Ottoman siege under Mehmed II failed in 1480. In 1522 Suleiman the Magnificent returned with a far larger force against a garrison of around 700 Knights and some 6,000 Greek auxiliaries and militia. The defenders repulsed a major assault in September, inflicting heavy Ottoman losses, but agreed surrender terms in December after months of fighting. Suleiman granted the Hospitallers and thousands of civilians safe passage with their arms, banners and icons; the campaign is said to have cost the Ottomans tens of thousands of dead, making it Suleiman’s most costly victory. The Knights eventually settled on Malta in 1530 under Charles V.
Ottoman rule lasted until 1912, when Italy took the island. Italian administration rebuilt the Grand Master’s Palace as a Mussolini-era residence in 1939–1940. German occupation followed in 1943; in July 1944 the roughly 1,700 members of Rhodes’s centuries-old Sephardic Jewish community were arrested and deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau, and only a small number survived. British forces liberated the island in 1945, and the 1947 Treaty of Paris transferred the Dodecanese, including Rhodes, from Italy to Greece. The Old Town was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list in 1988.
What you see
The Street of the Knights runs for 200 metres between unrestored Gothic facades in original stone, each auberge marking a different national division of the Order. At its head stands the Grand Master’s Palace, its exterior a faithful 1939–1940 reconstruction after the 1856 explosion; inside, Roman mosaics brought from Kos by the Italians decorate the floors, and the building now also serves as a museum of medieval archaeology.
The medieval walls circle the Old Town for some four kilometres, punctuated by eleven gates and seven towers, with the D’Amboise Gate of 1512 considered the finest surviving piece of Knights’ fortification. The Archaeology Museum of Rhodes occupies the former Knights’ Hospital, built in 1489, and houses the Aphrodite of Rhodes, a Hellenistic marble Venus recovered from the sea. An Ottoman hammam from the fifteenth century preserves its domed interior with star-patterned light openings and tiled decoration.
In the Judería, the old Jewish quarter, medieval lanes lead to the Kahal Shalom Synagogue of 1577, still in use and retaining its original Sephardic decoration, alongside the Jewish Museum of Rhodes.
Practical information
- Access: the Old Town is a pedestrian quarter within Rhodes town; opening arrangements for individual monuments and museums are best checked through their own official channels before visiting.
- Highlights to plan around: the Street of the Knights, the Grand Master’s Palace, the Archaeology Museum, the medieval walls and the Judería with its synagogue and museum.
- Footwear: the old cobbled streets and uneven medieval paving reward sturdy, comfortable shoes.
Getting there
Rhodes Old Town lies at the northern end of Rhodes town, at approximately 36.4449° N, 28.2263° E, within the modern city on the island of Rhodes in the South Aegean.
Nearby
- Grand Master’s Palace — at the head of the Street of the Knights, within the walls.
- Archaeology Museum of Rhodes — housed in the former Knights’ Hospital, a short walk from the Street of the Knights.
- Judería and Kahal Shalom Synagogue — the old Jewish quarter, within the walled town, with the adjoining Jewish Museum of Rhodes.
- D’Amboise Gate — part of the surrounding fortifications, reachable on foot along the walls.
Sources
- UNESCO
- Archaeology Museum of Rhodes
- Jewish Museum of Rhodes
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