Rhodes!

I love this island, but I should have booked one less day here. Either that or won the lottery before coming, so I could explore the whole thing. Got in Tuesday afternoon just a couple hours too late to do the wall walk (and the next one isn't until Saturday), so I ended up doing the northwest section of the old dry moat instead. It's hard to tell what's original and what's not (more on that later), but the walls are almost completely intact, as is the retaining wall for the glacis. There are a bunch of old stone cannonballs (I'm assuming from the 1522 siege) laying around down there, and those were really cool to see. After that I wandered out to the Fortress of Saint Nickolas, which guards one side of the harbor where the Colossus stood. From there I wandered/got lost in the Old Town on the way back to my room, and ended up walking up the road where some of the different "langues" (the Knights were divided by language) kept their inns.

Today was, I guess, the big day. I slept in a bit, had some almonds for breakfast, then walked up to the Palace of the Grand Masters of the Knights of Saint John. It was amazing to be there, and the architecture was cool, but it was actually a fairly disappointing visit. A lot of it was closed off to the public, and most of the exhibits were similar to the things I had seen at the Byzantine Museum in Athens a few days ago. Still, it was somewhere I couldn't not go. From there I walked around the city and did the rest of the dry moat, then returned to the hostel to rehydrate and cool off. It's been pretty humid all day, and with the weather in the high 70s and low 80s, that makes for a very sweaty Daniel. Luckily the room is air conditioned, so I worked on my postcards before grabbing a gyro (bit more expensive here, but comes with fries) for lunch/dinner, then spent the rest of the rest of the evening reading before coming down here for a beer and some blogging. I've got no USB access though, so no pictures and probably no more posts until I get back to the States. For those who are interested, I'll probably be setting up a separate blog and typing up my journal as well, which should fill in some gaps. It's a bit more... raw? I'm not sure if that's the right word, but the blog was designed for general audiences, and I definitely swear in my journal. I'll keep you posted on that.

For now, a quick check of the blogs, then reading, then bed. Try not to break the country (or let the Democrats break it) before I get home.