Wild Southern Rhodes: Clifftop Monolithos Castle and Prasonisi (Where Two Seas Meet)

South of Kritinia and Lindos, the resort hotels vanish completely and Rhodes turns into a wild landscape of pine mountains, honey-producing villages (like Siana and Embonas) and two of the most dramatic coastal formations in Greece.

1. Monolithos Castle (70 km south-west of Rhodes Town, Free 24/7)

Just past the mountain village of Monolithos, the road rounds a bend and reveals a sight straight out of fantasy: a sheer, standalone 236-metre monolith of grey limestone rising vertically above the sea cliffs, crowned by the crenellated stone battlements of Monolithos Castle. Built in 1480 by Grand Master Pierre d'Aubusson on top of an earlier Byzantine watch-fortress, the castle is reached in 10 minutes up a rock-cut stone staircase built into the cliff face:

• Inside the Ruined Keep: at the summit stand the snow-white 15th-century Chapel of St Panteleimon (Agios Panteleimonas), vaulted stone rainwater cisterns, and a 360-degree cliff-edge view looking straight down onto the wild waves of Fourni Beach (a dramatic pebble beach with sea caves and Hellenistic rock tombs 10 minutes drive down the switchback road below) and across the water to the islands of Chalki and Alimia. Come an hour before dusk for the most dramatic sunset on Rhodes.

2. Prasonisi ("The Kiss of Two Seas", 90 km south at the Southernmost Tip of Rhodes)

At the very southern tip of the island, a wide, one-kilometre-long golden sandbar (tombolo) stretches out to connect the mainland of Rhodes with the rocky lighthouse island of Prasonisi ("Green Island"), creating one of the most extraordinary natural phenomena in the Mediterranean:

• Waves on the Right, Flat Lagoon on the Left: because the sandbar sits at the exact geographical boundary between two seas, on the western side (the Aegean Sea) steady winds whip up rolling waves where kite-surfers jump into the air; walk literally thirty metres across the dry sandbar to the eastern side (the Levant / Mediterranean Sea) and the water is completely flat, calm and shallow for swimming and beginner windsurfers.