Rhodes is an island that has been fought over for three thousand years, and the walls of its old town still carry the marks. In 1309 the Knights of St John, a crusading order driven from the Holy Land, took the island and spent two centuries turning its capital into one of the strongest fortresses in the Mediterranean. They built the Palace of the Grand Master, a vast castle of pale stone, and the Street of the Knights, a long cobbled lane lined with the headquarters of the order's language groups. In 1522 the Ottoman sultan Suleiman besieged the city with a great army and, after six months, forced the knights to leave.
The old town is a UNESCO World Heritage site, and it is walkable and compact, with mosques, churches and a former synagogue within the same walls. The newer city, with about 56,000 people, wraps around it, with a harbour lined by cafés and a pair of bronze deer on columns marking the entrance, where, according to legend, the Colossus once stood, a giant bronze statue of the sun god Helios, toppled by an earthquake in the third century BC.
Fuel and food are easy. From Rhodes the main road runs down the east coast, past beaches and resorts, toward Lindos, where a white village climbs below an ancient acropolis perched on a cliff above the sea. The road is generally good, with long, gentle curves through olive and pine, and traffic is heavy in July and August. The west coast, battered by wind, is quieter and wilder, and the interior hills have villages where the food is good and the pace is slow.
The weather is warm from April to October, and the sea is at its best in September. The meltemi, a dry northerly wind, blows hard in summer, and it can push a bike sideways on exposed stretches, so keep a firm hold. Ferries run to nearby islands, and the harbour is a pleasant place to watch them come and go.