Rhodes

I am discovering the joys of May and June in Germany. So far I have had 2 long weekends and have 2 more coming up. Last Thursday was a holiday, and we got the Friday off school - so a 4 day long weekend!! With some friends from school I went to Rhodes, Greece for 3 nights. 

The trip started off kind of crazy. We had a 5:20 am flight, so had to be up just after 3 in order to catch a cab to the airport. It was weird getting up so early, but I was so excited that I had no problems. We arrived in Greece about 9:30 am. We stayed right in the Old Town, so the taxi could only take us to one of the gates. (Though that didn't stop scooters, and even some cars, from driving through the Old Town). 

Here is the gate we came in through: And yes, we did have to watch out for cars here. 

The Old Town in Rhodes is not from ancient Greek times, as I had first wondered, but from medieval times. This area of the town is the old walled city. Now of course there is much of the city of Rhodes outside the old town walls. 

What we saw a lot of - boarded up buildings and also unfinished buildings

View of the harbour. The two columns that now have statues of stags on top were once where the feet of the Colossus of Rhodes stood.

Wall of the harbour. We spent quite a bit of the first afternoon up here, relaxing in the sun.

A common site in Rhodes - a stray cat! Really made me miss my cats back home.

Day 2: Road trip to Lindos with a stop at the beach. We hired a car and drove up the island to see some of the other sites, and go for a swim!

Cara and I in the Mediterranean :)

Enjoying the waves, right before heading for cover...

...as dark clouds and rain rolled in

Nice weather again once we made it to Lindos. Not very big, but with an acropolis at the top of the hill.

View of the acropolis. It looks like there are lots of ruins still standing, but in fact much of those have been put back together and recreated. Its kind of an odd combination, they've created a ruin. 

The other view of the acropolis and the Mediterranean below

Jennifer, Cara and I!

Me :)

The cobblestones in Rhodes. They are small rocks on their ends making very pretty designs. It was a cool way to do cobblestones, but here you did not get any grip on the ground. We all had to be careful not to slip going down the hill.

Lindos: The square where we had our lunch

Day 3: Back in Rhodes. The next morning we all headed our own ways. I headed straight to the archaeology museum. It was housed in the old Knights Hospital. The Knights Hospitallers were the medieval leaders of the city. Inside were ancient artifacts from all over the island. 

View into the courtyard of the museum

My favourite part was the huge garden in the back. It had more artifacts in it, but was also just a gorgeous place to be on a sunny, warm day

The main street of the Old Town

We had meals in the various restaurants along the main street. At meal times each restaurant would have someone out front trying to entice customers into their place. So as you walked by they would start talking to you, trying to get you in for food or drinks. Because we were speaking English, we often were asked where we were from. A bit complicated - Germany, Canada, USA? 

The clock tower

Another kitty - this time in a box :)

The remains of the race track

Cara and I trekked out to the Acropolis of Rhodes our last afternoon. A bit hard to find because we had to get half way there before we found any signs. We had actually just decided to check out the ancient race track when we discovered it was also the site of the acropolis. We overheard a tour there, and apparently there are many more levels of seats hidden under the trees and bushes. 

All that is left

And this is the acropolis in its entirety. If you look closely you can even tell that this has been recreated too. So I guess all that was really left was a small piles of stones. Makes me wonder if they actually formed three complete columns, or were just put together that way to actually have something complete. 

May Day!

Today was a holiday for May Day. Jennifer, Cara and I met at the Hauptbahnhof with our bikes and took a ride along the Main. I took the Sbahn there and it was packed with bikes - everyone was out to enjoy the holiday and nice weather. We started in the state of Hessen and rode to Bavaria. Aschaffenburg isn't far into Bavaria, but it was a 56 km ride. I can't think of a more perfect ride though. It is along the Main the whole way, and there wasn't a single hill all day. The weather was cooler today (only got up to about 26 degrees). A lot of the way was in the shade and was perfect for biking.

Pretty much everyone gets a holiday on May Day here, so there were lots of people out enjoying the good weather. At one small town we ran into some kind of Fest going on. Unfortunately the bike path went right through the area of the Fest and so we had to wind our way through the crowd.

Our first picnic

The small town where we stopped for a picnic on the bike path. The bike path was paved pretty much the whole way. We were on the Mainradweg, following the Main river.

Crossing the Main. Almost there!

Only another 14 km to our destination

Arrived! This is the castle in Aschaffenburg. It is right on the water and we sat on the grass for another picnic.

56.29 km traveled!!

After travelling so far to get there we took the train back, along with a ton of other people - there were about 10-15 other people hoping to get on with bikes and at least the same already on the train. We had to run from one end of the train to the other because there were too many bikes in the front bike area. For a minute we thought that we wouldn't make it on, but luckily did. 

It was a perfect way to spend the day off. Outside, in the sun, on our bikes, and with friends :)

Würzburg in the Sun

On Saturday Cara, her friend Ning, and I took the train to Würzburg for the day. There we met up with Cara's friend Maria and her boyfriend. They go to the university there, and acted as our tour guide for the day. We started by walking up to the fortress. This was a slow trek, as the weather was so hot - it was 32 degrees!!! And this is after we had been having such cold weather, so I was not exactly dressed for so warm. We stopped for ice cream very shortly after we arrived :)

Looking up the walls of the fortress on our way up ... contemplating if that would be a shortcut :) (The wall was vertical!)

Trying to keep cool on our walk up

Rapunzel's Tower

At the Fortress

After visiting the Fortress we headed back down (a shorter way) into the city. We stopped on the way at a fountain to refill water bottles and cool off. We also had to stop to pick up the chocolate that Cara had hidden in some bushes because it was melting in her bag. 

As we wandered through Würzburg on our way to Maria's house we stopped at some of the markets. She was looking for herbs for her balcony. We also stopped at Aldi for food for a picnic. After a stop at Maria's house we went to the park near by. By this point it was cooler, and sitting in the park in the shade was perfect. 

Happy after having eaten a delicious dinner of bread, cheese, meat and salad

Trying out the slack line. It was so much more difficult than it looks! We just tried balancing in one place - not even trying to take any steps. You stand on one foot at a time, so it takes some strength.

Maria was really good at balancing!

Cara was also pretty good. She could even take a step or two by the end. I switched and played some frisbee instead, that was a little easier.

Stop on the way back to the train station - the gardens to the Residenz, which was the house of the bishop of Würzburg.