Avoiding Temptation in Rhodes

As I make my way towards the old town, they are lying in wait for me, their gorgeous brown coats glossy and glistening. I find them increasingly hard to ignore as I walk past, eyes firmly fixed on the harbour. I concentrate on trying to imagine the harbour straddled by a colossal statue over a hundred feet high. But Helios is long gone now. These days the harbour entrance is guarded merely by an inoffensive looking bronze stag and a doe, destined to eternal separation and looking slightly forlorn atop their columns.

I find my attention wandering as the waiters, with an unerring knack for stating the obvious, do their best to distract me “Hello Miss! Chocolate cake!” they cry, and I turn to feast my eyes on the window displays of calorie-laden gateaux, some topped merely with cream, others with chocolate flakes or plump strawberries.  It would be so easy to sink into one of the cushion-laden chairs and give way to temptation.

But I press on.  The restaurants in the old town try a different approach.  Here, there are brightly coloured feathered guardians, welcoming potential customers with a friendly squawk. I pause to exchange a greeting with a magisterial blue and gold macaw, and continue on my way.

The old town is bustling and busy, filled with day trippers and cruise passengers jostling each other in their eagerness to snap up bargains in leather goods, embroidery and woodwork.  A group of art students sit in a café, putting the final touches to their watercolours of the scene.

I pass the Palace of the Grand Masters, looking remarkably well-preserved. And so it should, for it was largely rebuilt to serve as a holiday home for Mussolini, though he never got round to using it.

Eventually dusk falls, and the crowds disappear, returning to the floating palace out in the bay and the villas down the coast, and at last I have the place to myself.  I walk down the Street of the Knights, where the Knights of St John used to live – each nationality in its own inn.  As my footsteps echo on the cobbles, I can almost hear them calling to me.

I retrace my steps back towards the harbour, running the chocolate gauntlet once again.