Rhodes: the Palace of the Grand Master and the Medieval City

The short answer

The Palace of the Grand Master is one monument inside a larger one. The Medieval City of Rhodes is the walled town that the Knights of St John, the Knights Hospitaller, made their headquarters from 1309 until 1522; Visit Greece says UNESCO designated it a World Heritage Site in 1988.[6][4] The palace was the Grand Master's residence and an administrative centre, and Hellenic Heritage says it formed a key part of the city's medieval fortifications.[1]

In practice that means three different things to visit. According to the Ministry of Culture's Odysseus page, the Medieval Town itself is open with free access.[4] The palace, now a museum, and a walk on the fortification walls are each sold as a separate timed ticket on Hellenic Heritage's ticket store.[3][2]

Where the palace sits in the town

Both official addresses place the palace in the Medieval Town: Hellenic Heritage gives the Street of the Knights, and the Ministry's page Kleovoulou Square.[5][1]

The Ministry's account of the town explains why the palace is where it is. It says the Knights' fortifications divided the town into three main parts, and it describes two of them: the Collachio, or upper town, which held the Knights' dwellings, most of their administrative buildings and "the last line of defence", the fortified palace of the Grand Master; and the borgo, or lower town, where most civilians lived, separated from the Collachio by a wall and moat. The Street of the Knights, the Collachio's main street, was lined with the inns of the Order's "tongues", its conventual church and its hospital.[4]

Hellenic Heritage adds that the palace is believed to stand on the site of the original Byzantine acropolis, one of the three parts into which the Byzantine walls divided the city, alongside the Kollakio (upper town) and the burgo (lower town).[1] That medieval citadel is not the ancient Acropolis of Rhodes, which Hellenic Heritage presents as a separate archaeological site.[9]

Other monuments of the Knights' quarter have their own official pages. Hellenic Heritage says the Church of Our Lady of the Castle, in the Kollakio quarter, was a Byzantine church that became a Gothic basilica under the Knights and a mosque under Ottoman rule.[8] The Knights' hospital houses the Archaeological Museum of Rhodes.[6][7]

The walls

Hellenic Heritage presents the palace and the fortification walls on one page, and says the walls trace the development of fortification from the Byzantine era to the Knights. Under the Knights, it says, the fortifications enclosed a far larger area and grew thicker, with independent towers, an outer wall and a vast moat, and the Ottomans repaired them without changing their overall form.[1] The Ministry says the Knights' defences grew to four times the Byzantine size and were gradually adapted to gunpowder warfare, and that they repelled the Ottoman sultan Mehmed II in 1480 before Suleiman the Magnificent took the town in 1522.[4]

The walls are a separate visit. Hellenic Heritage's ticket store sells the "Rhodes Fortification Wall Walk" as its own timed ticket, and its site page lists separate hours for the walls, with the walls closed in its winter schedule.[1][3]

The palace: how much is medieval

Hellenic Heritage says construction began in the early 14th century, shortly after the Knights settled on Rhodes, and that the building has a rectangular plan around a central courtyard. It was partially destroyed by an explosion in 1856.[1]

Much of what the official pages describe inside dates from the Italian period. Hellenic Heritage says the Italians restored the palace in the early 20th century, along with the major monuments of the Medieval City, after they took the Dodecanese, and that its decor is the one restored in the 1930s.[1] The Ministry's page is more specific: the comprehensive restoration of the 1930s gave the palace its present internal layout as the administrative headquarters and residence of the Italian governor. Both say the mosaic floors on the upper floor were brought by the Italians from buildings on Kos, which the Ministry calls ancient.[1][5] Visit Greece says simply that the palace was reconstructed under Italian rule.[6]

XTOUR's reading is that the palace a visitor enters is a medieval building comprehensively restored by the Italians, with an interior laid out in the 1930s and decorated with mosaic floors brought from Kos alongside the furniture and objects both pages list. The three official pages agree on the Italian restoration; they differ on how faithful the interior is, as set out below.

What is inside now

Hellenic Heritage says the palace's ground floor holds two permanent exhibitions, devoted to ancient and to medieval Rhodes.[1] The Ministry names one of them, "Rhodes from the 4th c. AD to its Capture by the Ottoman Turks (1522)", with finds from excavations in the Medieval Town such as pottery, sculpture, detached murals and icons, and describes a second, on the ancient city, on the ground floor and basement.[5] Its information tab also lists a third exhibition, "From the Knights of St. John to the Knights of Malta", and the palace gardens.[5]

Tickets

Hellenic Heritage's ticket store calls itself the official one. Its palace page says timed entry is required, that a ticket is valid for one entry on the date and time chosen, that it can be changed up to two hours before the visit, at most twice, and that tickets are non-refundable; the palace ticket includes the Digital Guide app.[2] The wall-walk page sets the same terms but does not mention the app. Both pages say large luggage, food and professional photography or filming are not permitted.[2][3]

Where the official pages disagree

A combined ticket. The Ministry's palace page lists a "special ticket package" valid for the Archaeological Museum of Rhodes, the Decorative Arts Collection, Our Lady of the Castle, the Medieval Town and the palace.[5] Hellenic Heritage's pages sell the palace, the wall walk, the museum and the church separately and do not mention a package.[8][7][1] XTOUR does not know whether the package is still sold.

The size of the town. Visit Greece says the Knights left behind "an architectural gem of 800,000 square metres".[6] The Ministry says their defences enclosed a crescent of 42 hectares around the main harbour, which is 420,000 square metres.[4] Neither page says what its figure measures, and XTOUR does not choose between them.

The town's divisions. Visit Greece describes two sectors, the Castello in the north and the Burgus in the south.[6] The Ministry says the Knights' fortifications divided the town into three main parts but describes only two, the Collachio and the borgo, separated by a wall and moat.[4] Hellenic Heritage's three-part division (acropolis, Kollakio and burgo) refers to the Byzantine walls, before the Knights.[1] XTOUR's reading is that these describe the same upper and lower town under different names and periods, but the pages do not say so.

How faithful the interior is. Hellenic Heritage says that "only the interior could be faithfully reconstructed, as the original plans for the rest of the building had been lost".[1] The Ministry's page says the interior's present layout dates from the 1930s restoration, when the palace was fitted out as the Italian governor's headquarters and residence.[5] XTOUR cannot reconcile the two from these pages.

What is open inside the palace. The Ministry's page gives different opening days for the palace's exhibitions and says the lower level of the "Rhodes 2400 Years" exhibition is closed for maintenance; Hellenic Heritage's page gives one schedule for the whole palace.[1][5] Check with the operator before you go.

What XTOUR does not tell you

XTOUR does not publish prices, opening hours, closing days or travel times for the palace, the walls or the Medieval City. Hellenic Heritage's page lists an elevator among the palace's amenities, but XTOUR has not assessed access for any visitor.[1] XTOUR's Rhodes destination is the whole island, and its record for the palace places it on the island; for the country, see Greece and the Greece travel guide to mainland and island bases.