Rhodes Medieval Old Town: Street of the Knights, Gates and Walking the Moat

Inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1988, the Medieval City of Rhodes is not a museum ruin, it is a living walled city of 6,000 residents encircled by four kilometres of double and triple sandstone fortifications up to 12 metres thick, built between 1309 and 1522 by the Order of the Knights of St John of Jerusalem (the Knights Hospitaller) before the six-month siege by Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent. Inside the eleven fortified gates, the city is divided by an inner wall into two historic halves: the northern Collachium (the noble quarter of the Knights) and the larger southern Burgum (Hora) where Greek, Jewish and later Ottoman citizens lived.

1. The Street of the Knights (Odos Ippoton, Walk early in the morning)

Stretching for 200 metres in a straight, gently climbing line from the Archaeological Museum square up to the Palace of the Grand Master, Odos Ippoton (The Street of the Knights) is the most complete, untouched medieval Gothic street in Europe. Paved with river pebbles and devoid of a single shop sign or café table, its high golden-sandstone facades house the seven Auberges (Inns) representing the seven linguistic "Tongues" (nationalities) of the Order, France, Italy, England, Provence, Auvergne, Aragon and Castile/Portugal. Step through the open arched doorway of the Inn of France or the Inn of Spain into shaded interior stone courtyards.

2. Walking Inside the Dry Moat (Tafros) & The Rampart Walk

• The Moat Walk (Free, Open 24/7): Notice that the colossal 21-metre-wide defensive moat encircling Rhodes Old Town was never filled with water, it was engineered as a deep dry canyon (tafros) with hidden underground artillery galleries (caponiers) so invading troops who jumped in were trapped in crossfire. Today, you can walk down into the grassy, oleander-planted moat at d'Amboise Gate or St Anthony's Gate and stroll for 2.5 kilometres right between the 15-metre-high cyclopean walls in total peace.
• Walking ON TOP of the Medieval Walls (Rampart Walk): every afternoon starting from the courtyard of the Palace of the Grand Master, a gate opens allowing visitors to walk along the top of the western battlements all the way to St John's Gate.
• Socrates Street & Hippocrates Square: down in the lively Burgum, follow lively Socrates Street past the 15th-century Castellania (Merchant Court) and the owl-topped fountain of Hippocrates Square.