Rhodes, GR

A family-run taverna in a 100-year-old building in a residential quarter of Rhodes Town, serving Dodecanese meze anchored in seasonal and local ingredients. Owner Nikos runs the room personally, tailoring a selection of small dishes to what the kitchen has that day rather than a fixed printed menu.

A tucked-away neighborhood taverna in Rhodes New Town whose exterior gives little away and whose prices remain strikingly low for the quality. The menu is short, traditional, and all cooked in-house — the zucchini flower fritters, fava beans, and grilled octopus are the backbone of any visit.

Set in a converted Ottoman hammam inside the Old Town, Tamam serves a broad menu of Greek and Eastern Mediterranean dishes that favors mezze-style sharing — stuffed vegetables, eggplant preparations, lamb dishes, and fresh fish. One of the most-reviewed restaurants on the island and consistently among the highest rated.

A courtyard restaurant inside a restored Venetian-era mansion in the Old Town's Turkish quarter, serving refined Mediterranean plates with an emphasis on local seafood and produce. The garden setting — jasmine, lanterns, old stone walls — is the most atmospheric dining room in the Old Town.

A seafood taverna in operation since 1970, tucked into a quiet square in the lower Old Town and supplied by direct relationships with local fishermen. The daily catch determines the menu — ink-braised octopus, grilled whole fish by weight, and straightforward seafood pasta feature when available.

A husband-and-wife seafood taverna in the residential streets just north of the Old Town, with a flower-filled yard and a handwritten menu of whatever came from the harbor that morning. Squid in its own ink, grilled octopus with vinegar, shrimp risotto, and a rotating selection of mezze are the format.

A long-running family taverna in the Old Town's labyrinth streets, producing straightforward Greek classics — moussaka, slow-cooked lamb, fresh salads — in a courtyard setting under an old building's walls. The food is reliable and honestly priced for the Old Town, and the kitchen accommodates dietary requests readily.

A 1605 captain's house in Lindos village converted into a restaurant by the same family that has run it for decades, with a rooftop terrace that faces the Acropolis rock directly. The menu centers on slow-cooked meats, daily fresh fish, and Rhodian mezze, with a serious wine list weighted toward local labels.

A small meze restaurant in the lanes of Lindos village, positioned slightly off the main tourist path near Yannis Bar, offering a short menu of honest Greek mezze at low prices. Lamb kleftiko — slow-cooked until it falls apart — is the anchor dish and often sells out early.

A small family winery in Embonas village on the slopes of Mount Attavyros, producing Athiri white and Mandilaria red from the island's own grape varieties, with a tasting room where you can sample alongside local cheese and mezes. Embonas is the inland wine capital of Rhodes, cooler than the coast and little visited.

The island's oldest and largest winery, founded in 1928 just outside Rhodes Town on the road to Lindos, producing the island's best-known sparkling wine alongside Athiri whites and Mandilaria reds. A winery tour covers the cellar, award displays, and ends with a tasting of the Brut and rosé sparkling wines.

The oldest continuously operating restaurant in Lindos, founded in 1933 and now managed by brothers Dimitris and Michalis Mavrikos in the original building on the main square. The kitchen works exclusively with local and seasonal ingredients — fresh-caught fish, hand-picked greens, Rhodian capers — prepared in a style that references classical Greek technique without chasing trends. The ravioli, introduced decades ago by an earlier generation, has become a house signature that returns visitors make a point of ordering again.

A Lindos landmark since 1981 spread across multiple whitewashed terraces with a direct sightline to the illuminated Acropolis — the best table in the village for watching the ancient columns glow at dusk. The menu covers traditional Greek mezedes alongside grilled seafood, mixed grill, and pasta, with a wine list that leans toward Rhodian and Aegean producers. The rooftop terrace fills by 7pm in summer; arrive early or accept the ground-floor seating.

A quietly elegant restaurant in a restored Lindian family home, where the architecture — lime-washed rooms, pebble mosaic courtyard, carved stone doorways — is as carefully considered as the cooking. The menu combines Greek classics with international influences in a way that reflects the owner's own travels: octopus with caramelised onion, lamb with herbs, fresh pasta with local seafood. The setting is genuinely beautiful and the service unhurried.

The most demanding hike on Rhodes, climbing from Embonas village to the 1,215-meter summit of Attavyros — the highest peak in the Dodecanese — over steep, loose-rock terrain with no shade. The ruins of a Temple of Zeus mark the top, and on clear days the full island spreads below with Crete visible to the south.

A hard 4.4-mile trail climbing from the stone village of Salakos to the Profitis Ilias monastery at 798 meters through pine forest, gaining roughly 560 meters in elevation. The mountain is the third highest on the island and offers forest shade rare on Rhodes, with a functioning monastery at the top.

A short, easy 1.5 km loop near Kolymbia on the east coast where seven springs feed a wooded canyon, with the defining feature being a 186-meter pitch-dark irrigation tunnel built by the Italians in the 1920s — waders wade through ankle-deep running water to reach the lake at the far end.

The cobbled route from Lindos village's main square up through the medieval lanes and final stone staircase to the acropolis, a 25-minute climb gaining roughly 100 meters through the best-preserved cluster of traditional Lindian captain's houses, with hochlakia pebble-mosaic courtyards visible over low walls.

A short climb from the fishing village of Charaki on the east coast to the ruined Crusader castle of Feraklos on an 85-meter cliff, overlooking two sheltered bays and the Aegean toward Turkey. The castle is extensive in area despite its ruined state, with visible tower foundations and wall sections to explore.

A circular route from Monolithos village descending to a small red-sand cove between basalt cliffs before climbing to the 15th-century castle on its isolated rock, covering coastal, gorge, and summit terrain in a compact 2–3 hour loop. The route showcases the southwest coast's emptier, rockier character.

The curving harbor front of Rhodes New Town, lined with windmills, three restored medieval towers, and a bronze stag-and-doe pair on columns marking the entrance where the Colossus of Rhodes is thought to have stood. The most pleasant evening walk in the city, with the fortress wall behind and boats at anchor ahead.

The island's cooperative winery, founded in 1928, operates tasting evenings where the full range of CAIR Brut and rosé sparkling wines, Athiri whites, and Mandilaria reds can be sampled with guidance from the cellar team. A structured alternative to bar-hopping that showcases what makes Rhodian viticulture distinct.

After the day-tripper buses leave around 5pm, the medieval streets shift into a different mood — locals emerge, the light goes golden on the limestone, and tavernas set out their evening tables. Ippokratous Square at the heart of the lower town is the natural gathering point, ringed by cafes and the 14th-century Castellania fountain.

A mountain village at 850 meters on the slopes of Attavyros where several family wineries operate tasting rooms alongside tavernas specializing in spit-roasted goat and grilled meats — an inland alternative to the coast resort circuit that gives a clearer picture of how Rhodians themselves eat and drink.

Lindos village has no cars and a cluster of rooftop bars with acropolis views that come into their own after sunset when the day-trip crowds have thinned. Yannis Bar, the oldest bar in Lindos, sits near the base of the acropolis path with a following built over decades among both locals and return visitors.

A UNESCO World Heritage site and the largest inhabited medieval city in Europe, enclosed within 4 km of intact stone walls built by the Knights Hospitaller. The warren of cobbled lanes holds Ottoman mosques, Byzantine churches, Venetian arches, and Jewish Quarter synagogues in a dense, legible layering of centuries.

The great fortified palace at the crown of the Old Town, originally a 7th-century Byzantine citadel rebuilt by the Knights in the 14th century and heavily restored under Italian occupation. The interior holds Roman mosaic floors salvaged from Kos, medieval marble fixtures, and a room of Hellenistic sculpture.

A clifftop acropolis 116 meters above the sea at the south end of the island, layering a 4th-century BC Doric temple of Athena Lindia, Hellenistic stoa, Byzantine chapel, and Knights of St John castle walls into a single dramatic stack of civilizations. The whitewashed village of Lindos spreads through the lanes below.

A shaded canyon 26 km from Rhodes Town where thousands of Jersey tiger moths gather each summer on the bark of Oriental sweetgum trees — one of only a handful of sweetgum forests in Europe. Wooden bridges, trickling streams, and mossy stone paths make the walk pleasant even when the moths are scarce.

Housed in the fully intact 15th-century Hospital of the Knights, the largest Gothic building surviving in Greece, the collection spans prehistoric finds to Hellenistic sculpture and Byzantine mosaics. The marble Aphrodite of Rhodes — a crouching figure pulling her wet hair — is the anchor exhibit.

An Italianate thermal spa complex on the east coast, built in the 1920s on the site of ancient springs praised by Hippocrates, and partially used as a film location for Zorba the Greek. The thermal waters no longer flow, but the restored rotunda, mosaic floors, and palm-fringed coves are worth the 10 km drive from Rhodes Town.

A 15th-century Knights Hospitaller fortress perched on a 236-meter basalt monolith on the southwest coast, commanding views west over the Aegean toward the island of Halki and south toward Crete on clear days. The castle itself is a romantic shell of walls and a single intact chapel, reached by a 10-minute staircase climb from the village.

A Byzantine church perched at the end of 300 steps above a stretch of east-coast beach, housing an 11th-century icon of the Virgin Mary surrounded by a folk tradition of barefoot pilgrimages for fertility. The views from the top take in both Tsambika beach to the south and the Archangelos plain to the north.