La Juderia (The Jewish Quarter), Kahal Shalom Synagogue (1577) and Ottoman Rhodes

Beyond the Gothic castles of the western knights, the southern and eastern lanes of Rhodes Old Town preserve the deep architectural memory of two communities that shaped the city for more than four hundred years after 1522: the Sephardic Jewish Quarter (La Juderia) in the south-east near the harbour, and the Ottoman Muslim Quarter around the upper bazaar.

1. La Juderia (The Jewish Quarter) & Kahal Shalom Synagogue (Built 1577)

Located in the quiet eastern corner of the walled city between Plateia Evraion Martyron (Square of the Jewish Martyrs, marked by its bronze seahorse fountain and Holocaust memorial) and Dossiadou Street, La Juderia was settled by Ladino-speaking Sephardic Jews expelled from Spain after 1492 and welcomed to Rhodes in the 1520s:

• Kahal Shalom Synagogue & The Jewish Museum of Rhodes (Dossiadou Street): built in 1577, Kahal Shalom ("Congregation of Peace") is the oldest surviving synagogue in Greece and the only one of the quarter's six pre-war synagogues to survive World War II bombardments. Step through its peaceful pebble-mosaic (chochlakia) courtyard into the prayer hall, which follows the unique Sephardic-Dodecanese layout with the central reading platform (tevah) facing two separate Torah arks (heikhal) flanking the eastern Jerusalem doors. The adjoining six rooms of the Jewish Museum chronicle the daily life, bridal dresses and Ladino printing of the 1,673 Rhodian Jews deported in July 1944 (when Turkish Consul Selahattin Ülkümen heroically saved 50 Jewish residents by asserting Turkish citizenship protection).

2. Suleymaniye Mosque, The 1793 Hafiz Ahmed Agha Library & Clock Tower

At the top of Socrates Street directly opposite the medieval walls of the Collachium stands the rose-pink dome and slender white minaret of the Suleymaniye Mosque:

1. The Muslim Library of Hafiz Ahmed Agha (1793, Across the small plaza): founded by a wealthy Rhodian-born Ottoman court official, its quiet courtyard and two domed reading rooms safeguard 1,256 priceless medieval Arabic, Persian and Ottoman manuscripts, including a 1540 illuminated Qur'an and a 1522 handwritten chronicle of the siege of Rhodes.
2. The 1851 Ottoman Clock Tower (Roloi): fifty metres away, climb the 53 wooden steps to the top of the 1851 Fethi Pasha Clock Tower (your small ticket includes a complimentary drink at the garden café below) for the highest 360-degree view over the domes and roofs of the Old Town.