Ancient Ialyssos (Filerimos)

Ancient Ialyssos occupies Filerimos Hill, about 15 kilometres south-west of Rhodes town in Greece, near the modern village of Ialyssos. It was one of the three ancient Dorian cities of Rhodes, along with Kamiros and Lindos, which merged in 408 BC to found the city of Rhodes. The hill had been inhabited since the Mycenaean period, and later Phoenician and Dorian settlement is recorded. The visible remains include the foundations of the Hellenistic Temple of Athena Polias and Zeus Polieus from the 3rd century BC, and a Doric fountain house of the 4th century BC cut into the hillside. Over the centuries the hill acquired a Byzantine church and then, under the Knights Hospitaller in the 14th century, a monastery and the Church of Our Lady of Filerimos, which is the best preserved medieval building on the hill. The Italians restored the monastery in the 1920s and 1930s and added a long avenue of cypresses leading to a large concrete cross at the summit, and a Via Crucis with stations of the cross. Visitors enter by a ticket office near a car park and follow a path up to the monastery complex, with cloisters, a chapel decorated with the Order's coats of arms, and the monastery gardens, where peacocks roam. The Doric fountain, with its rock-cut basin and columns, lies on the way up. The summit gives a wide view over the north-western coast of Rhodes and towards Turkey. The archaeological site is mixed with the medieval and Italian remains, and the visit is a combination of antiquity, Christian heritage and landscape. Finds from Ialyssos are held in the Archaeological Museum of Rhodes. Preservation of the ancient temple is limited to foundations, while the medieval buildings are in good condition. A visit typically takes one to two hours, and the site is best visited in the morning before the heat builds up.