We caught the overnight ferry from Piraeus to Rhodes on the evening of 30 April. For almost 35 miles we could see the Parthenon standing out more clearly than in this photo as we’ve had to zoom in a lot but there it is for all travellers to see over the centuries!
Rhodes was spoilt by cruise ships and the mass tourism which goes with that but it was easy to walk away from the honey pot streets and get lost in cobbled alleyways and we had the extraordinary 15th century palace, hospital and fortifications of the Knights of St John to ourselves.
We had to leave earlier than expected as we bumped into Greek Easter and the ferries stopped running over the long weekend so we set sail to Tilos leaving the windmills of Rhodes behind.
We sailed first into Symi joined by three dolphins. I managed to catch one of them.
Tilos has been a wonderful quiet place to stop still and enjoy the view. Life in the slow lane…my drawing of Alex on the terrace of the studio we rented.
Greek Easter was celebratory. On 1 May families give each other garlands of flowers (the ferry had been full of people carrying them). On Good Friday we went to church in the evening where outside the church a bier had been decorated with hundreds of flowers, everyone came forward, took a flower and then crouched to walk under the bier for good luck. On the Saturday at midnight the church bells rang, fireworks lit up the bay and lots of firecrackers were thrown and made a lot of noise outclassed by a sensational thunder storm with lightning and huge thunder rolls. Finally on Easter Sunday a big lunch is celebrated with dancing. It was fun to go through Easter a second time after Sicily, hugely important in both places from somber and impressive in Sicily to a jollier event in Greece.
Here is the 15th century monastery of St Panteleimon (the all merciful) which is at the far end of the island.
Tilos is famous for its dwarf elephants. In 1971 they found the remains of 40 elephants a fifth of the size of African elephants which used to roam the island until 4,000 years ago. Before the ice age the island was connected to Asia Minor so the elephants could roam to and fro but when the water levels rose after the ice age, were isolated on islands and because of overcrowding they had to shrink to reduce the demand for food ( a process known as insular dwarfism). The end result were elephants which only grew to 1.2 or 1.5 metres high. This took us straight back to Catania in Sicily where the main piazza has a Neolithic statue of a dwarf elephant as they lived there as well but became extinct much sooner than on Tilos. There were many images around the villages including this lovely pebble version.
It’s extraordinary to imagine elephants wandering around this island in the way that goats do now. The museum was closed for Easter but we managed to get into the museum at the last minute as Kyriakos the car hire guy (who also runs the Grill House and is a general fixer) said we could not leave without seeing it and made it happen. It was a really good little museum run by a very enthusiastic and knowledgeable young man. Here are the bones of baby dwarf elephant which was found in the nearby cave.
We’ve slowed down a lot here, taken in the view, sketched the rocks and trees (Alex’s drawing), enjoyed the blue and white.
Off on another ferry on Tuesday to volcanic Nisyros!
