Hagios Pavlos (Saint Paul)
On the road that goes through the southern side of Rhodes, 3km before reaching
Kattavia village, you will
find a peculiar abandoned church with a tall bell tower. Around it there are a few
small guest houses. Here was the seat of the Azienta San Marco agriculture company, founded in 1935 by the
Italians, who brought to the area 45-50 families of Italian settlers to work. After
the outbreak of the Word War II, the settlers left and were replaced by farmers
from Kattavia. After the Italians withdrew in 1948, the building complex was
permanently abandoned. A little further, on the opposite side of the road, the so-called
prison of Saint Paul is located, which used to be a silk processing factory. The
dirt road to the left of Saint Paul’s prison leads after 5-6 kilometers to the
small monastery of Agios Georgios tis Nyfis (Saint George of the Bride).
Eleousa
It is a deserted village in the lush foothills of Mount Profitis Elias. It was built
by the Italians (Campochiaro was its original name) and loggers from Northern
Italy settled there. Their goal was not only the utilization of timber, but also
the care of the forest for tourist reasons –on Profitis Elias used to stay the official
guests of Rhodes. The square of Eleousa is surrounded by imposing buildings. The
largest of them featuring the arches and the small curved balconies was the
market. The prison was right across (now operating as a school). On one end of the
square stood the sanatorium and on the other the church of Agios Charalambos
(Saint Charalambos), which was once a Catholic and now is an Orthodox church.
A few meters further from the square there is a large round cistern, filled
by the waters of the adjacent Koskinisti spring. It is the home of a quite
large population of gizani.
This is all that remained of a population that no longer exists, that of the
Platy stream.
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Profitis Ilias
Approximately 25 klm from the city of Rhodes,
in the area of Salakos, Profitis Ilias is the third highest mountain of the
island, after Attaviros and Akramitis. On
the summit stands the monastery of Profitis Ilias, and just before the
summit the road leads to the hotel “Elafos and Elafina”. It was built between
1929 and 1932 and initially housed Italian army officers. The hotel takes its’
name from the local species of deer, called dama dama, which still livesin the
wild throughout the island. “Elafos and Elafina” is a renovated and modernized
establishment, which retains its’ original architectural traits and the area of
the mountain is ideal for walks, hiking and exploring the local flora and
fauna. Opposite the hotel stands the currently abandoned de Vecchi mansion, the
country house of the Italian Governor of the Dodecanese from 1936 to 1940. The
mansion is also believed to have been built to be used as a summer home for
Benito Mussolini. North of the compound, one of the paths leads to the small
church of Taxiarhis, from which you can enjoy a breathtaking view.
