Pedaling Across the Agean: Day 8- Rhodes

Today’s weather was a much better landing in Rhodes. We were beginning to learn Bill Mcready’s style of briefing, and decided to opt (along with James and BetteAnne) to take the shorter ride today. We really wanted to explore the old city of Rhodes (or Rodos as the Greeks call it). It was still about 25 miles with 1500 elevation gain, so we felt that we did do some exercise. We met some goats on the way.

We rode directly to lunch at a farmhouse in the midst of an olive grove at the top of a huge hill.

Unfortunately, our timing stunk. We were about 2 hours too early to partake in lunch. We did find out that feta and lamb were prominent members of the cast of lunch, so we did not mind at all. We did a brief stop at their olive oil factory to sample the oils (and use their bathroom).

We cruised back to the city center with James and BetteAnne and found a small fish restaurant on the coast rode just before the city.

The waiter was a real character, And brought us lightly fried ocean perch with olive oil and oregano, calamari, chicken souvlaki, eggplant salad, garlic bread (that was outstanding) and fruit for dessert. Not bad for 30 euros!

One of the things that we wanted to see in the old city was the oldest synagogue in Greece, the Kahal Shalom Synagogue.

Names of Families killed in the Holocaust

The Jewish population has declined considerably especially after the Holocaust,

but the synagogue continues to operate for special occasions. A wedding will be held here in a few weeks. There is also a very nice Jewish museum in the synagogue with information about the history of the Jews in this area. James’ grandmother was from this area, and fortunately escaped from before the invasion. He found some references to some people that might have been related.