The Marine Venus
Aphrodite wringing her hair — Durrell's tenderness.
Szilas — Public domain · George Chernilevsky — CC BY 4.0 · George Chernilevsky — CC BY 4.0 · Jebulon — CC0
Rhodes' museum is a building before a collection: the Knights' New Hospital (1489) — the order's original reason-for-being in complete stone: the great Ward with its arcades where the knights ranked free sickbeds for every creed, and a central court whose stone lion guards heaped siege balls history piled. Its star is the crouching Rhodian Aphrodite wringing her marble hair (1st BC) — the tenderness Lawrence Durrell renamed the Marine Venus — beside knights' tombstones in their tongues, centuries of Kamiros and Ialysos pottery, and the sun-crowned head of Helios. Its last secret is the terraced back garden of pebble mosaic and lemon trees — a rest the hurried never find. It is the town trio's inevitable third with palace and street — the combo gathering all.
Aphrodite wringing her hair — Durrell's tenderness.
Every creed's sickbeds beneath 1489 arcades.
Lemon and mosaic — the quiet back secret.
Museum Square, 85100 Rhodes
Panagia tou KastrouA large stone building near the Street of the Knights whose history sums up the 1 minute walk4.3
Street of the KnightsA paved stone street climbing some six hundred metres from the harbour to the Pa1 minute walk4.7
The Medieval City of RhodesRhodes' old town is Europe's largest inhabited medieval city: the Knights of St.3 minutes walk4.7
The Grand Master's Palace & Street of the KnightsThe Grand Master's Palace is the Knights' city's crown: a fortress within the fo4 minutes walk4.7
Hafiz Ahmed Agha LibraryA small Ottoman building with a stone frontage and a latticed window on **Sokrat4 minutes walk4.4Early morning: the street empty on the way up, the palace at opening, then the museum — then deep-town lunch. Heat and cruise ships own the noon: you will have beaten both to the big three, keeping lanes and moat for the afternoon.