It was pitch black when we arrived in Rhodes. The taxi driver, an unpleasant young fellow with the consistency of a marshmallow, who simultaneously drove, talked on a handheld, surfed loud music, and resisted my attempts to close the window, dropped us and our luggage on the side of a dark road just outside the old town wall, said good bye, and speed off. I won't miss him.
Rhodes old town is dark at night. It is a medieval city. There are few streetlights. The streets are narrow, and covered in small stones. They must be slippery when it rains. After a couple of false starts we found our way to and through the outer city wall at Saint Athanasios Gate, and then over the moat, though it was too dark to see anything in the moat but blackness.
The streets are a maze, perhaps laid down by the cats, the ubiquitous Cretan cats, like the credit we gave the cows when discussing the labyrinthian streets of Boston. "Who laid these streets like this?" a newcomer would ask. "The cows" was typically the reply. As good an answer as any in an olden town. It is no exaggeration to say that Crete is overrun with cats. Even the Heraklion airport is well populated with the rat catchers, assuming that is their role here, the reason for the care they receive from the island's inhabitants.Or perhaps people just like cats.
