In some respects Corfu has its advantages over Rhodes as a retirement spot. For one thing it is only a short ferry hop, a mile or so, from the mainland, while Rhodes is an overnight trip by inter-island boat. And Corfu is also handy in that it is easily available to Italy. An overnight trip takes you to Brindisi and from there you are in Naples or Rome in a matter of hours. Corfu has a large foreign colony too, particularly retired English, while the foreign colony of Rhodes is largely limited to the permanently based American servicemen there. The swimming, the scenery, the prices on Corfu, we have no arguments about. It is a charming, pleasant island on which to consider retirement. However, the town of Rhodes, on the island of Rhodes, is the most beautiful city in the world. I have done a good deal of traveling in the past decade and can state that of all cities these I think the most beautiful: Mexico City, Paris, Rome, Venice, New Orleans, San Francisco, Istanbul and Tangier (not necessarily in that order). But Rhodes is the most beautiful city in the world. In the days of the Trojan War there were three Greek towns on the island and they supplied ships to join Agamemnon's expedition against Troy, but in the year 408 B.C. they decided to unite and form one big town which they named Rhodes. Later the city fell to the Romans and later the Byzantines took over. But in 1308 the Knights of St. John, a Crusader order, captured the island and it was they who built the city we see today. Rhodes is a medieval city. The walls which still surround it are in good enough condition to withhold a siege right now. It's streets are still cobblestoned, the shops where you buy bread, wine and olive oil for your daily needs are the same shops that dealt in the same commodities 600 years ago. The little taberna where you stop to have a glass of beer or retsina wine once served knights in armor. Rhodes means Roses and indeed this is an island of flowers. The parks that surround the moats of the fortress walls are abloom with flowers all year around and are particularly heavily splashed with reds. I believe that I've already stated in this book that there is no place in Europe that equals the climate of Florida or even southern
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