Palace of the Grand Master of the Knights of Rhodes Greece

Legendary

A medieval castle built in the late 7th century.

Photo by Luc Coekaerts

The Colossus of Rhodes may have stood right here. For centuries people assumed the giant bronze statue guarded the harbor entrance, but recent research points to the foundations beneath this palace instead.

By the late 7th century, the Byzantine Empire had built a fortress on those foundations. It was the strongest point in the city.

Then the Knights Hospitaller arrived in 1309. They were a religious military order that had been driven out of the Holy Land, and they made Rhodes their new base.

They rebuilt the old fortress into a palace and headquarters for their leader, the Grand Master. From here, the Knights ruled Rhodes and nearby islands for more than 200 years.

In 1481, an earthquake struck the island and killed around 30,000 people. The palace was badly damaged but quickly repaired.

The Ottoman Empire captured Rhodes in 1522 after a long siege. The palace became a military headquarters, then a prison.

Disaster came in 1856. Lightning struck the church next door, where gunpowder had been stored, possibly since the 1522 siege.

The explosion killed many people and blew off most of the palace's upper floors. It sat in ruins for 80 years.

Italy took Rhodes in 1912. In the late 1930s, Italian architects rebuilt the palace in grand medieval style as a vacation home for their king and later for the dictator Benito Mussolini.

The design was mostly guesswork. Nobody knows how closely today's palace matches the Knights' original.

On February 10, 1947, the Treaty of Peace with Italy handed Rhodes and the other Dodecanese islands to Greece. The transfer happened in 1948, and the palace became a museum.

Walk through the courtyard lined with ancient statues, then upstairs to see floors covered in Roman mosaics brought from the island of Kos. Look for the plaque near the entrance that still carries Mussolini's name. Then follow the Street of the Knights outside, the medieval lane where each nation's knights had their own inn.