Saturday 27 January 2018

RHODES


Well, long time no speak! As a way of very quick explanation as to where the hell I've been over the last couple of months, basically, I've been thinking a lot about the direction I want to take my blog in, whether I want to stick to fashion and beauty, whether I want to keep going at all (gasp!) and for some reason, today, it came to me. IT DOESN'T MATTER! I've been so hung up about what I should and shouldn't be posting that every time I've gone to actually write a post, I've started, stopped and given up altogether. I've come to realise that I don't need a theme - the reason I love blogging and the blogging community is because it's so varied, I've met and spoken with a whole heap of different kinds of people from all walks of life through blogging and that's why it's so great.


I'm a girl with many interests, many likes and dislikes and my life certainly has no running theme, so I don't think my little piece of the internet should either! So, that brings me onto today and today's post, one of my many loves - travel! I'm not going to promise to write a detailed post on every town, city and country I visit, but it is something that I love and if I go somewhere that I think others will love to, then I'll share. I won't outline my future plans for my blog, but in short, I'll be writing about things that interest me as and when I feel like it. That may be places I've visited, bands I've seen or the usual old fashion and beauty posts, so watch this space!


Today, I wanted to write about the pretty little place in the pictures you'll see dotted about in this post. In early October last year, Darren and I headed off to Rhodes on part two of our Honeymoon. We'd booked a mini break in Luxembourg the day after the Wedding, but wanted to do a 'proper' holiday as well as we'd not been on a beach holiday since 2013! When deciding where to go, we had a checklist of a few must haves for our Honeymoon destination;

  • Must still be warm enough to sunbathe in early October
  • Must be on or very near the sea
  • Must have 'other stuff' to see (aka places to visit!)

First things first, the weather. We'd read that Rhodes in October was still pleasantly warm, but could be a little windy and you did have the chance of some rain. I think because we were there in very early October we were pretty lucky with the weather. The temperature reached 27 degrees Celsius several days and never went below about 18 during daylight hours. It was lashing it down with rain when we got off the plane and we got drenched on the walk between the airport and our transfer coach, but other that one other time during the middle of the night, we had no other rain the entire time. They were not kidding about the wind though! Almost all of the time we were there there was a gentle sea breeze, which we were quite appreciative of on the particularly hot days, though other times the wind was very strong. Not quite enough to make it cold unless you'd just come out of the sea or pool and were soaking wet! It was still definitely bikini weather though and we both got a lovely tan. I'd definitely recommend going in early October though, because while it was lovely and warm to sunbathe in, it was also nice and comfortable to walk around in and I don't think I got that horrible sticky, humid feeling even once! 

Because of the time of year, the sun went down around 7pm most nights, which made for very pretty evenings with all the lights of various hotels, restaurants and bars glittering along the vast beach. This meant peak sunbathing hours were between around 11am to 5pm, which allowed plenty of time for lazing around in the sunshine! The evenings were warm, though if it was a breezy evening, it did help having a light cardigan or something to put round your shoulders after the sun had gone down.


Next up, location. Our hotel, Avra Beach Hotel was, located in Ixia, which is full of hotels along the beach and has loads to see and do in itself, but is also a very short bus ride away (for only 2 euros might I add!) from Rhodes Old Town, which very quickly became one of my favourite places I've ever visited. Our hotel was right on a pebbled beach, which I personally quite liked, aside from the fact it was pretty uncomfortable to walk on bare foot, it also meant I didn't go upstairs with sand in my shoes and... other places every evening! Because the hotel was right on the beach, it was very easy to find a good sunbathing spot in the mornings. The hotel did get very busy around the pool, but we tended to grab a sun lounger on the beach instead and never had any issues hunting one down! 

Ixia is full of bars, restaurants and shops with a fab mix of traditional Greek and international food. This meant we could choose to eat in at the hotel when we fancied being lazy, but we also had plenty of very inexpensive options if we wanted to go out. It was busy, but not overwhelmingly so due to the time of year, which also made it a great time to be there. 


As for things to do and see, Rhodes really does have it all. The hotel itself had the usual nightly entertainment that you get with any all inclusive hotel, though we didn't really hang around for that most of the time. We found one bar in particular just a 5 minute walk from our hotel called 'Double Deuces', which had a live band called 'The Izzy Dizzy Band' every single night. They did a variety of classic rock songs, if you're ever in the area and like that kind of music, I'd thoroughly recommend checking it out as it was a definite highlight of our trip. 

As I mentioned before, there was a bus right outside the hotel than went from Ixia to Rhodes Old town in around 15 minutes or so and for only about 2 euros each way. The bus ride itself was actually another highlight of the trip. The views of the beaches on the way to the Old Town were just stunning, I think I spent the full journey staring out of the window in absolute awe. Reaching the Old Town was no different either. There's so much history in Rhodes and so many beautiful buildings and monuments to see. We loved exploring the old Medieval Castle and it's grounds and all the cute little markets and shops. Rhodes Old Town is probably one of the most beautiful places to get lost in and when I say lost, I do mean very, very lost. There are so many twists and turns and side streets to wander around and it is quite possibly one of the most confusing places I've ever been to! Don't let that put you off though, we didn't check any maps or anything and managed to find our way back to the bus stop eventually at the end of the day - albeit after a lot of 'I think I recognise that!' and 'we've walked past here already!'.


In general, we didn't find Rhodes particularly expensive, depending on where you went. The closer to the Old Town you were, things were naturally more expensive, but we found that traditional Greek food  - read, lots of hummus and falafel (me) and kebabs (Darren!) - was very easy to find and very inexpensive pretty much wherever we went/ If you're buying souvenirs to take home though, I'd suggest heading out of the Old Town to do so, as the shops all sell the same things, but we found that the ones around Ixia were much cheaper.

In general, we found the people so friendly, in fact, it was possibly one of the happiest, friendliest places I've ever been to. Of course, you get plenty of different types of people wherever you go and you can't generalise a whole island based on the handful of people we encountered, but on the whole, we found that the vibe was very laid back, which was exactly what we were after. 


I could honestly go on for days about why I loved Rhodes so much, but I think that about covers the basics! Please do let me know if you enjoyed this post, because I've just loved writing it and sharing one of my favourite places with you all!

Until next time beauts! x