Photo: Burkhard Mücke (CC BY-SA 4.0)
A long self-guided audio walking tour of Rhodes town, on foot in three parts; from a cruise ship, keep the all-aboard time in mind, and anyone short of time can do only the first part or take the ship's own excursion. It starts at the Aquarium of 1934 and 1935, built as a research institute, and follows the Italian new town along Mandraki, built while Italy ruled from 1912 to 1943: the Grande Albergo delle Rose, stripped of its ornament in 1936, the National Theatre of 1937, the Governor's Palace modelled on the Doge's Palace, the Evangelismos, built as a copy of the Knights' lost church of Saint John and now the Orthodox cathedral, the Nea Agora and the Catholic Cathedral of Saint Francis, consecrated in 1939. The second part goes south to the Commonwealth war cemetery, the Jewish cemetery with its memorial to the families deported in 1944, the rock-cut tombs of Korakonero and Rodini Park with the so-called Ptolemaic tomb. The last part climbs Monte Smith, the acropolis of the city founded in 408 BC, to the stadium with its original starting line, the odeion rebuilt in marble between 1938 and 1940, the gymnasium, the temple of Apollo Pythios, the temple of Athena Polias and Zeus Polieus and the nymphaea.
18 narrations, yours to keep — no subscription, no expiry. Works offline once downloaded, and if it isn’t for you we’ll refund it.
Going somewhere with no signal? Put the guide on your home screen first, then download it from that icon while you are on wi-fi — that way you download once, and it works in airplane mode with no roaming charges. Show me the order →
Every claim in this tour traces back to a named source — excavation records, the heritage authority for the site, and the primary texts themselves. Nothing is copied from other guidebooks, and anything we can't source doesn't make the recording.
Each stop is built from OpenStreetMap · 150 features in this old town (the field-surveyed mapping database behind Apple Maps), Wikidata · 89 cross-referenced entries (peer-reviewed structured records), the heritage authority below, and the primary historical texts where they exist.
Cross-referenced against Modern excavation publications · academic peer-review.
Every sentence is checked against those sources before it is recorded. If a claim can't be traced, it doesn't make the audio.
Every tour is reviewed by a person before it goes on sale. Stop selection, the route and anything ambiguous come back to the editor for a decision, and those questions routinely send a stop back for another accuracy pass. Nothing publishes on a machine’s say-so.
Spot anything inaccurate? Email [email protected] — fixed in the next pass.
The Aquarium, Grande Albergo Delle Rose, National Theatre of Rhodes, Governor's Palace, Church of the Evangelismos, Nea Agora, Cathedral of Saint Francis of Assisi.
Rhodes War Cemetery, Jewish Cemetery of Rhodes, Korakonero necropolis, Rodini Park, The Ptolemaic tomb and the Rodini necropolis.
The ancient stadium, Odeion, Gymnasium, Temple of Apollo Pythios, Temple of Athena Polias and Zeus Polieus, Nymphaea.
Built in 1934 and 1935 as the Royal Institute for Biological Research, with marine life carved on its facade and, when open, an aquarium below ground built like an underwater cave.
A copy of the Knights' church of Saint John, built for Italian Catholics and finished in 1929, converted to Orthodox worship and now the cathedral of Rhodes.
About two thousand gravestones, moved here in the 1930s, and the 1949 memorial listing the families deported from Rhodes to Auschwitz in 1944.
A late Hellenistic tomb carved from the living rock, ringed by twenty-one Doric half-columns, though nobody knows who was buried there.
The stadium of the Halieia games, about 200 metres long, partly restored, with its original stone starting line at the northern end.
The four re-erected Doric columns that crown the acropolis, rebuilt twice in antiquity and re-erected by Italian archaeologists in 1937 and 1938.
Tap "Start Walking Tour" and allow location access. The map shows all 18 narration points.
Follow the suggested route or explore freely. GPS tracks your position. Reach a site and the narration plays automatically.
Each site has its own narration. 18 narration points.
Narrations play when you reach each site. No buttons, no track numbers. Walk naturally — the stories find you.
Premium narration that sounds like a documentary. Warm and knowledgeable, not a textbook reading.
Every narration is drafted, cross-checked against primary sources, then passed through a second editorial pass that strips unsupported claims. Dates, names, and citations verified.
See all narration points on the map. Tap any point to hear it early or replay it later.
Every narrated point in Rhodes beyond the Walls — the Italian Town, Rodini and Monte Smith, each with its own narration.
Spend an hour or a full day. Skip sites, revisit favourites, take breaks. The tour adapts to you.
18 narration points, including The Aquarium, Grande Albergo Delle Rose, National Theatre of Rhodes, Governor's Palace and Church of the Evangelismos. That is about 22 minutes of narration in all, and you walk between the stops at your own pace.
Yes. It plays in your phone’s browser as you walk: no guide, no group, no app to install and no fixed start time.
Three ways, all built in:
The map-tap option means you can stand anywhere — even at home before you travel — and play any narration. GPS just makes it hands-free while you’re actually walking the site.
No. Use the “Download for offline” button before you go, and the entire tour — audio, maps, narration text — works without any data connection. Tap-to-play and the map both work fully offline. GPS itself doesn’t need data; only the download does.
Add the icon first, then download from the icon. On iPhone a guide downloaded in Safari cannot be seen by the home screen icon, so downloading first means downloading the whole thing twice.
Putting it on your home screen — iPhone or iPad (Safari):
On Android (Chrome): tap the three-dot menu at the top right, tap Add to Home screen (some phones say Install app), then confirm. On Android either order works.
If you opened this link from inside Instagram, Facebook or Gmail, you are in that app’s built-in browser. It cannot add anything to your home screen, and a guide downloaded there is thrown away when the app closes. Open the link in Safari or Chrome first.
Two backstops. First, the map shows every site — just tap the marker for the place in front of you. Second, you can manually queue any narration even when GPS is off. The platform never assumes GPS works; it’s the convenience layer, not the gate.
The audio runs ~4–5 hours total, but you walk at your own pace. 18 narration points across the site. Most visitors take 2–4 hours; some spread it over multiple visits. Once you buy it, it’s yours — there’s no expiry and no subscription. Come back next year if you like; the link in your receipt always works.
One purchase covers one device session. Most couples share earbuds and use a single phone — the audio is paced for that. If you want everyone listening on their own device, each person needs their own purchase. We do not gate sharing aggressively; we trust visitors to do the right thing.
Full refund if you never trigger a single narration on-site. Partial refund based on how far you got. See the refund policy for specifics.