Lindos Castle and Acropolis

On 19 August we decided that we had been lazy for far too long and, therefore, that we needed to hike up to the top of the hill to see the spectacular castle. We took the dinghy ashore, walked around the beach and started up the zigzag path climbing up towards the castle entrance. We could have taken the popular option of riding a donkey but we stuck with walking …

… which gave us lots of time to enjoy the views down onto our anchorage.

Knights of St John Castle

Looking up, the castle walls were very impressive. The acropolis had been fortified in the Byzantine, Medieval and Ottoman periods before the Knights of the Order of St John captured the castle in October 1307. Construction of what we were looking at commenced in the 14^th century and was completed in the 15^th century under the leadership of the Grand Masters of the Order, Antoine Fluvian and Pierre D’Aubusson. The headquarters area is believed to have been built by Grand Master Foulques de Villaret, who sought refuge in the citadel in 1317 after an internal dispute in the Order led to his attempted assassination.

Under the leadership of successive Grand Masters, primarily based up at the castle in Rhodes Town, the Order dominated the island and this part of the Mediterranean before falling under siege by the Ottoman Turks in the early 1520s. Part of the reason that the castle is in such good order is that, on 30 September 1522, the Knights of St John at Lindos surrendered the keys of the castle in exchange for their lives. Once under Ottoman control, a small Turkish garrison remained here until 1844.

Hellenistic acropolis   

What was not so clear looking up at the castle is that there had been much earlier building on the summit dating back to the 9^th century BC when the sanctuary of Athena Lindia was founded on the site.

As soon as we had walked inside the outer castle walls, the Hellenistic remains were much more obvious. It also seemed to be the remains from this era that the archaeological and restoration work on the site is primarily focussed upon.

Stoa   

The first major ‘wow’ factor is the Hellenistic stoa. It is 89 metres wide, with a grand staircase up the middle, and was built in the late 3^rd century BC, after the temple of Athena Lindia, to complete the approaches to the temple and provide sufficient complementary grandeur. In recent times 26 of the Doric order columns have been restored and these, plus the drawings above, helped us to visualise just how impressive the hilltop would have looked during the Hellenistic period.

The temple of Athena Lindia   

Climbing the steps of the stoa we arrived at the summit plateau and could see the much smaller temple of Athena Lindia which had been built on the highest point. The earlier temple on this site was destroyed by a fire in 392BC; what we saw was the reconstructed remains of the 22 x 8 metre replacement temple built around 300BC. Between 2000 and 2005 the temple was restored, correcting some 1930s restoration work carried out using concrete [Ed: the occupying Italians got the blame!], and so, again, it was easy to imagine how the complete building would have looked.

The church of Ayios Ioannis   

Also on the top of the hill is the church of Ayios Ioannis which was built in the 12^th/13^th century on the site of an early Christian basilica. The adjoining Knights of St John headquarters was built later and connected to the church via a small doorway, so the church became the place of worship for the knights. Later, during the Ottoman rule, the church was converted into a Muslim mosque. Apparently there are traces of the mihrab (prayer niche) still visible but we couldn’t pick them out.

The Knights of St John surrounded the whole of the summit plateau with castle walls.

Ancient necropolis (top right), the town and St Paul’s Cove   

Walking around these walls gave a commanding view down onto the town, the ancient necropolis on the far side of the town, and a fabulous view down onto St Paul’s Cove where, allegedly, St Paul came ashore on Rhodes during his preaching/conversion tour.

Circuit of the walls complete, we felt that we had explored the castle sufficiently to walk back down the hill and reward ourselves with a cool beer in one of the beach-side bars. As we sat there, a succession of tripper boats arrived from Rhodes town and nearby hotels disgorging literally hundreds of visitors. Lindos certainly is a busy tourist spot!

However, we were able to avoid any feeling of overcrowding relaxing back on board BV.

Lindos, Greece