The Rhodes less travelled

The bus grinds to a halt and all the passengers heave themselves from their seats. This is it then, we realise, as our surly driver opens the front doors for a fresh batch of customers. After a short rattle along the coast on public transport, we have arrived in Rhodes Town as the steady burning of the summer sun starts to ease off a little and a softer, crepuscular light casts a pale crimson glow on the harbour waters.

We are out to sample the island’s night life, but it’s not the English pubs and cocktail bars of Faliraki we’re after. My friend and I decide we’ll see if we can find something a little more Greek. Ambling past seafront restaurants, ignoring the frantic efforts of house staff who each take their turn to try and draw us inside, we do not hear a single English voice.

Greek’s economic problems have dominated front pages for weeks. On the islands the peaceful holiday atmosphere is largely unchanged – and most locals seem to have other things on their mind. The streets of Rhodes Town are heaving as Greeks and foreigners enjoy themselves, the bars doing a brisk trade. Faliraki was quiet when we drove through, but that was probably because the visiting Brits were still sleeping off hangovers.

Once within the vast medieval walls surrounding the oldest quarters of Rhodes Town, we can hear almost no voices. We’re alone on the palm-fringed path between the towering stone fortifications and the reconstructed Palace of the Grand Masters. The citadel, modelled by the Italians in the early 20th century on a Byzantine fortress built here by the Knights of Rhodes in the 14th century, provides a slightly unreal, fairytale-like backdrop to our walk. Behind the walls, the town’s hustle and bustle is faded out and the is silence punctuated only by the crunch of our sandals on the gravel.

It is not until we emerge, more by accident than design, into one of the winding medieval streets that snakes around the outside of the palace, that we encounter many other people. Squeezed together in the narrow alleys, beneath the old arches, are simple houses, their doors opening on to dimly-lit living areas where families sit eating; gift shops selling the ubiquitous Greek worry beads and other trinkets, and the odd taverna where the evening trade is yet to get going.

After meandering through these serpentine streets a while, we stumble into a little square and decide it is time for an aperitif. Minutes later, we are sitting on the roof terrace of a tall, thin restaurant, three storeys above street level, sipping gin and tonics and nibbling olives, bread and taramasalata. With a view over the rooftops to the thin strip of Aegean Sea beyond, we have surely discovered the best place on the island to watch sunset.

When we finally descend, a little wobbly, into the streets below, they are lively and crowded with holidaying Greeks, and the restaurants are filling up fast. Gift shops spill their wares out on to the pavements – stands of fridge magnets and postcards, racks of T-shirts and tea towels – and their brightly-lit, open-fronted interiors illuminate the night.

A taxi eventually returns us to the Amathus Beach Hotel, our base for the week. Tired and tipsy, we are just in time for a late dinner at its excellent Varkarola Taverna. Having eaten here on the first night of our trip, we fell in love with the place and have refused to eat anywhere else since. With tables dotted around a large terrace overlooking the hotel garden, pool and sea, it’s a charming dining spot.

We are in one of the luxury Elite Suites, with a superb sea view and our own private infinity pool. The setting is so perfect that it’s a struggle to leave our poolside sun loungers, other than to walk two paces to our table for al fresco lunches of halloumi salad and champagne on room service. But if we want to get a bit of the island in our hair and under our fingernails – or at the very least take a dip in the shimmering azure waters only yards from our hotel – we must tear ourselves away for a short while.

So the next morning we hit the road in a stuffy cab and head south-west along the coast, away from Rhodes Town. On our left loom rocky hillsides, at times flattening out to host fruit trees and farmland: a veritable market garden ripening in the baking heat. In these parts, the package tourists and nightclubbers who flock every summer to this well-trammelled treasure of the Dodecanese are nowhere to be seen. It is just us and an open road across a terrain to which perhaps only Lawrence Durrell could do justice.

Leaving the coast behind, we turn inland and climb a narrow road into the hills which takes us to the sleepy village of Embona at the foot of Ataviros mountain. Known for its wineries and its importance as a grape producer, its relative remoteness nonetheless makes it seem an unlikely pit stop for tourists. Yet the taverna we call in at for lunch is heaving.

Our waiter brings us a banquet of local cuisine – hummus, Greek salad, pork and lamb cutlets, sausages, kebabs, aubergine and bread. We attempt a little wander around the whitewashed back streets afterwards, but soon surrender to the burning rays that have kept the sensible locals indoors and flop back into the car, defeated.

Desperate to cool off in the sea by now, we return to Ixia and its pebble beach. The cool saltwater is the perfect tonic after our insanely hot drive, and we plunge in happily.

There will still be time when we return to our suite, dripping and refreshed, to turn on the whirlpool bath in our pool and splash about some more before dressing for dinner.

And the next day, our only appointment is at the hotel spa for some not-particularly-well-earned pampering. We leave Rhodes primped, preened, sun-kissed and probably slightly heavier, consoling ourselves with the thought that the best of this ancient settlement will still be here for us next time. And the time after that.

Getting there

Rosa Silverman was a guest of Amathus Beach Hotel on Rhodes, where she stayed in an Elite Suite. Sovereign Luxury Travel offers seven nights’ half-board at the resort departing Manchester from July 14 from £1,122 (saving up to £1,212 per couple). Reservations: 0844 415 1936 or visit www.sovereign.com