Sunday 7.11: Lindos means beautiful

Early Sunday morning (read: 7 AM) we wake up from what's not nearly a long enough sleep, check out, eat, and book it to the bus station to get to Lindos, which is an hour away from Rodos, in the middle half of the island. Waking up bleary-eyed and seeing this view was absolutely stunning.

You can tell that there is a Western European/Turkish influence on the town, which retains the whitewashed look, but isn't quite the same as the blues and whites of Mykonos.

The major attraction in Lindos was the Acropolis of Lindos, which was fortified like a castle. A lot of it, including the Temple of Athena Linda was reconstructed for tourists. There's not a lot to say about the town of Lindos other than the fact that it's absolutely gorgeous. The view from the Acropolis is better than the view from the Acropolis in Athens because of the clear waters and small towns and natural coves. And of course historically, the Acropolis had its stoa and propylaea and there was even a little cave like thing that was probably a corridor once upon a time. We only spent a few hours there, climbed the Acropolis, had a pretty good lunch on a rooftop and talked about where we wanted to go in our lives.

The afternoon went super awesomely. We played a game on the bus ride back (some version of Contact where you have to get from the "Outer Circle" to the "Inner Circle" or something) and kept playing until we got our luggage and made our way to the airport. We got back to the airport in time for the 4:40 PM flight which would have gotten us back to Athens around 6 PM. Unfortunately, there were only 3 seats left on the plane (we had standby tickets) and 5 of us. Because Marj had to wake up early in the morning and it was Naz's last night in Athens, Shivani and I stayed behind. We walked around Rodos, almost got to see a movie but couldn't because the time would have meant we missed the 11 PM flight (the only one left that day), so we had some Chinese food and chatted about life and love until roundabouts 9 PM. Now, this was the tricky part. We got back to the bus station in the town center at around 9:30, thinking the bus would get us to the airport at around 10. Problem was, the only bus to the airport left at 10:00 and with people getting on and off at just about every stop, we had to run to the ticket counter. Luckily, the airport was small, but we had some problems getting our tickets which made it all the more frustrating that the one person who knew the airline and worked with the airline and could have explained our situation was off in Athens watching the last World Cup game.

But at last, we were back in Athens, and asleep before our heads hit pillows [literally we slept on the bus ride back].

There's a saying, "All roads lead to Rhodes." This is obviously a take on "All roads lead to Rome," which is actually true.  No matter how you swing it, Rhodes is an island and there's not a road to lead to it unless the Greek government decides to magically procure the funds to built a land bridge all the way to practically Turkey. Would I have thought to go to Rhodes had I not been told to? Probably not. Would I have taken a ferry there by myself one weekend? Probably not. Was I glad I went? Definitely. Would I do it again, even the sleep deprivation and the getting back to Athens at 1 AM? Oh yes. This was one of the most relaxed weekends I've had, minus the travel heart attacks. Huzzah for impromptu trips that turn out to be awesome.

High and low fives,

Angela