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The Telegraph

The ancient Greeks made one massive mistake – abandoning beautiful Lindos

It rarely seems a good idea to doubt the wisdom of the ancient Greeks. History regards them as a clever people – garlanded denizens of the Mediterranean of yesteryear; heroes and warrior-kings, philosophers and poets, advancing the cause of European civilisation in their Athenian temples and Ionian idylls. And yet, when I arrive in Lindos, I find myself considering a decidedly blasphemous question. What were they thinking? Not all of them, of course. Just those ancient islanders who were daft enough to leave this beauty spot – which sits roughly midway along Rhodes’s glorious east coast. My break begins with a 30-mile journey to find it, from the international airport on the top edge of what is the largest of the Dodecanese, clipping the outskirts of its capital Rhodes Town on the way out – then plunging downwards, the sea gleaming on the left-hand side of the car, Turkey a brooding but invisible presence somewhere over the horizon. Finally, after one more bump in the unevenly surfaced road, Lindos appears – an elder statesman of these parts. So much so that it had risen and fallen before Rome had even conceived an empire. It was born in the 10th century BC, one of a cluster of city-states on this Aegean crossroads. It was mighty enough that, according to Homer in The Iliad, it sent out ships as part of the Greek attack on Troy. But then it faded – eclipsed by Rhodes Town, founded at the tip of the island in 408BC. The big time was over. Life drifted north. In coming south, against the flow of history, I feel that I have made a discovery of sorts. Or, certainly, found a refuge. Pinned to its hillside just above the town, Lindos Blu is the sort of hideaway where you could surely avoid any crisis, from the Trojan War to the Covid pandemic. It is an escape from it all, cascading down its slope in 70 rooms and suites – with their shaded balconies and plunge pools – to the broad sweep of Vlycha Bay at the bottom. A place to kick off your shoes, fall on to a lounger, give the world a steely look, and ask if it could manage not to bother you for the rest of the week. And so we do. The beginning of our stay is an exercise in moving slowly, and not very much. To Smeraldo, one of the resort’s two restaurants, for breakfasts of fresh fruit, gloopy yogurt and local honey – and back again for lunch a couple of unhurried hours later. An afternoon cocktail or two at Allegro – the bar next to a main pool that is more a hinted option for lazy splashing than a training hub for rigorous early-morning lengths. There is always the prospect, a little later, of a massage at the Elixir Spa. And then it is time for dinner, and that urge to dress up for sophisticated seafood at Five Senses, the property’s gastronomic focal point – with its emphasis on local ingredients and elegance.