Lindos Acropolis (300 BC), Whitewashed Captain's Houses and St Paul's Bay

Forty-eight kilometres south of Rhodes Town along the eastern coast, the highway rounds a headland to reveal one of the most dramatic views in the Mediterranean: a amphitheatre of sugar-cube whitewashed houses spilling down a valley between two turquoise bays, while directly overhead on a sheer 116-metre triangular limestone cliff stands the fortified Acropolis of Lindos.

1. Climbing the Acropolis of Lindos (Arrive early in the morning)

Because Lindos is the #1 excursion on Rhodes (and summer temperatures on the unshaded rock reach 35°C at midday), arrive between early in the morning and early in the morning and climb the 290 stone steps on foot through the pine trees in 15 to 20 minutes (please skip the donkey rides and walk up in grippy trainers). Passing through the crenellated 14th-century medieval battlements built by the Knights of St John brings you into a multi-level classical sanctuary:

• The Rock-Cut Relief of a Rhodian Trireme Warship (Hemiolia, c. 180 BC): right at the foot of the monumental staircase leading to the upper terrace, ancient sculptors carved the life-size stern and rudder of a Rhodian naval warship directly into the living cliff face to serve as the pedestal for a bronze statue of Admiral Hagesander (carved by Pythokritos, the very same sculptor who carved the Winged Victory of Samothrace in the Louvre).
• The Hellenistic Doric Stoa (200 BC) & The Temple of Athena Lindia (c. 300 BC): walk up the 34 steps through the 87-metre-long winged colonnade of the Stoa to the highest cliff edge, where the four-columned Doric Temple of Athena Lindia looks straight down 116 metres into the neon-blue water of St Paul's Bay.

2. Walking Car-Free Lindos Village & Swimming in St Paul's Bay

• The 17th-Century Captains' Mansions (Archontika) & Panagia Church: descending into pedestrianised Lindos village, look at the arched stone doorways carved with twisted ship-cable reliefs and inscribed with construction dates from the 1600s and 1700s, and step inside the 14th-century Church of the Panagia of Lindos.
• St Paul's Bay (Agios Pavlos) vs Lindos Main Beach (Megali Paralia): on the southern side of the Acropolis cliff lies St Paul's Bay, an almost completely enclosed, heart-shaped turquoise lagoon with a tiny white chapel at the water's edge (where tradition says St Paul landed during a storm in 57 AD), while on the northern side stretches the shallow, golden-sand Main Beach of Lindos.