We found a suitable car for hire (only a tiny Chevrolet Matiz, but enough for our peregrinations), and equipped with maps, guide book and a tank full of petrol we made our way out of the city and South towards Lindos. We drove by the whole length of the walls of the old city, past some very lush looking parks and the soccer stadium of Diagoras (the local team). Our first stop was at the health resort and spa of Kallithea (= “Beautiful View”).
Kallithea is a beach where many locals like to gather daily during Summer for fun in the sun and surf. The attraction of the site is that it’s very close to Rhodes town (about 7 km), but also because of the glamour of the magnificent Baths built here by the Italians (no longer in operation, but soon to reopen after a renovation). Tiny inlets and coves with their sculptured rocks and clear blue-green water, as well as a beach and some restaurants, bars and tourist shops all combine to make this a very good resort-type of attraction close to the city.
Faliraki is the next stop, and is about 16 km south of Rhodes Town. This is another resort town with numerous hotels, pensions and all manner of tourist shops. Tavernas, bars, restaurants, cafés dot the landscape and one sees nothing but scantily clad (and very sunburnt) tourists on their way to the beach. There is a holiday feel to the place and rightly so as many of the Northern Europeans that spend their vacation here will do their utmost to have a good time in the sun (which they don’t often see much of in their homeland!).
Apparently, Faliraki is one of the favourite destinations of the fans of the “hard” nightlife and of extreme daily activities and sea-sports. Needless to say then that it is a paradise for the young who look for amusement and fun, from intense night life, to bungee jumping, skidoo riding, and other extreme activities. In addition to all the above, you will find a Water Park, where children and adults will find several water games and have fun. Due to the vicinity to the town of Rhodes, the abundance of lodgings and the good organisation in all aspects, the resort attracts crowds of peoples at the beach.
We drove on to Afandou, once a small picturesque village, now a bustling little town where the streets have remained narrow but the buildings have crowded over them making for claustrophobic, overcrowded, congested mess. We lived in Afandou in 1963 and I have faint water-coloured memories of the place. The narrow streets, the low, white-washed houses, the open fireplaces, the oil lamps, the tall bell tower of the church… Now the only remaining constant in the forty plus years that have elapsed is that same bell tower, pointing upwards like an accusing finger. A faintly bitter taste in the mouth, a whiff of nostalgia and an urgency to move on, just like life has moved on. One cannot linger in a place which has been irretrievably lost.
On the way out of Afandou we saw a sign that led towards the church of Panaghia Tsambika (“The Virgin of the Flickering Light”). This is a very famous church and we proceeded towards it. There are in fact two churches, one small one up a high hill and one larger, lower down. We only visited the lower church, which is in fact the one that holds the miraculous icon. The story is that some time in the Middle Ages, a shepherd watching his flock at night saw a flickering light (“tsamba” in Rhodian Greek) high up on the hill where the Virgin’s chapel is built today. He was puzzled as the hilltop was deserted. He watched a second and third night and the light reappeared. The next day together with some of his friends, he decided to go up the hill and investigate. To their surprise they found a small icon of the Virgin Mary and in front of it a lit devotional lamp. They decided to bring it down to the village and soon, news of its miraculous discovery spread far and wide. When the news reached Cyprus, the Cypriots were bemused, as one of their icons of the Virgin and its lamp had disappeared from one of their churches. They sent an emissary who identified the icon and took it back to Cyprus. However, the icon returned to the hilltop in Rhodes. Twice more was the icon taken to Cyprus, but it kept on returning to the hilltop in Rhodes. A small chapel was built on the hilltop to house the miraculous icon, but a larger chapel was built in the Middle Ages and restored in 1760 by the monk Hadjiyerasimos.
The little chapel on the hill is visited by many women who wish to get pregnant. Tradition has it, that many women who have had difficulty in conceiving have had a child after visiting the shrine. In gratitude, they call these babies “Tsambiko” if a boy or “Tsambika” if a girl. This is a very common name in Rhodes.
We visited the church to light a candle and found it full of children as there was a school excursion on that day. The kids were playing and shouting in the yard, but the church was quiet and provided a welcome respite from the heat of the day. We lit our candle and saw the miraculous icon. It is a small icon of the Virgin in the traditional pose of blessing known as “The Virgin Wider than the Heavens”. It has been richly embellished with embossed silver and displayed in a velvet-lined box with a golden frame. Some schoolchildren were in the church and they were lighting candles and blessing themselves with the consecrated oil and they were charming as they followed the centuries old traditions taught to them by their teachers and families.
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