Update on Rhodes

I ended my last post a little abruptly - most of the keyboards in Greece have both our alphabet and the Greek alphabet on the same keyboard. Somehow, I managed to unknowingly switch over to the Greek alphabet, and I couldn't figure out how to switch back! No one was around to ask, and I was running out of time anyway, so I just cut-and-pasted to finish things up. Here's a little more on Rhodes.

The Old City of Rhodes contains the Palace of the Grand Master of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem. The Knights of St. John were founded to take care of the sick and wounded during the Crusades. Because of the great political tensions in the world at the time, they kept having to move their headquarters. At one point, they settled on Rhodes and built a magnificent fortress and palace. To enter the fortress, you have to go through three sets of gates and massive stone walls. The oldest and most famous part of the fortress is the Street of the Knights where the nights from each country built their own buildings where they lived. Today, the streets of th Old City, as the inside of the fortress is called, are filled with shops and cafes. It is the best preserved medieval town in Greece, and one of the best in the world.

After our guided tour of Rhodes Town, we returned to the ship for lunch, and then several of us used the free afternoon to return to the town and wander the streets. We then had Mass on the ship with one of the other pilgrim groups, and then a formal dinner together as a group. Most people got to bed early on Saturday night because we had a VERY early meeting time on Sunday. More about that in the next post ...