"The islands!" a Greece Travel Page by sabe

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I'll start this off by telling you a bit of facts from the island of Rhodes which I visited some years back.It is known as the isle of the Sun. Pindar mentions in one of his Odes that it was born of the union of Helios the sun god and the nymph Rhoda. In antiquity it also bore the names Aithraia, Ophiousa and Telchinis. It was first inhabited in the Neolithic era. A major milestone in the island's history which affected the fate of the other Dodecanese as well was the founding in 700 B.C. of the Dorian Hexapolis, a union of its three cities with Knidos, Halikarnassos and Kos. Its economy and culture continued to flourish until the 3rd century B.C., when it was the predominant power in the Aegean. When. a thousand years later in 1309, it fell into the hands of the Knights of St. John, it became again the centre of power, symbolized by its magnificent mediaeval town and the imposing castle and palace of the Grand Masters.

In june of 2002 I went back to Greece, this time to the Island of Crete, which is in my opinion less effected by the tourism and still has quite a lot of that 'old world" charm.