Street of the Knights

The Street of the Knights, known in Greek as Odos Ippoton, is a long cobbled lane in the Old Town of Rhodes in the South Aegean region of Greece. It climbs a gentle slope from Museum Square near the Archaeological Museum to the Palace of the Grand Master, a distance of roughly 200 metres. The street is lined on both sides by the inns of the Knights of St John, built mostly in the 15th and early 16th centuries, where knights from the different langues, or language groups, lived and dined. Stone facades carry coats of arms and carved insignia, and the buildings are grouped by nationality, with the inns of Italy, France, Spain, England and Provence among the best known. Pointed archways, buttresses spanning the street and small windows give it a distinctly Gothic character, and the setting is often used as a backdrop for film and photography. Italian restorers in the early 20th century repaired the inns, and several are now used as offices, consulates or cultural venues, so many interiors are closed to the public. Visitors therefore enjoy the street mainly from outside, reading the heraldry and noticing the massive door frames. Walking the full street takes only 30 to 45 minutes, although photographers often stay longer to wait for empty frames. Crowds are worst in late morning and early afternoon, when coach and cruise groups pass through, and the best moments are early morning, around sunset and at dusk, when the lane is quiet and the stone takes on warm tones. The classic viewpoint is from the lower end near Museum Square looking uphill toward the palace, and the reverse view from the top shows the street curving down to the Church of Our Lady of the Castle. The surface is paved with rounded cobbles that can be slippery. No ticket is needed.