Simply to catalogue the principal monuments and attractions cannot do full justice to the infinitely more rewarding medieval city . There's ample gratification to be derived from slipping through the eleven surviving gates and strolling the streets, under flying archways built for earthquake resistance, past the warm-toned sandstone and limestone walls painted ochre or blue, and over the hokhláki (pebble) pavement.

Dominating the northernmost sector of the city's fourteenth-century fortifications is the Palace of the Grand Masters (summer Mon 2.30-9pm, Tues-Fri 8.30am-9pm; winter Mon 12.30-3pm, Tues-Sun 8.30am-3pm; ?6). Largely destroyed by an ammunition depot explosion set off by lightning in 1856, it was reconstructed by the Italians as a summer home for Mussolini and Victor Emmanuel III ("King of Italy and Albania, Emperor of Ethiopia"), neither of whom ever visited Rhodes. The exterior, based on medieval engravings and accounts, is passably authentic, but inside, free rein was given to Fascist delusions of grandeur: a marble staircase leads up to rooms paved with Hellenistic mosaics from Kós, and the ponderous period furnishings rival many a northern European palace. The ground floor is home to the splendid Medieval Exhibit and Ancient Rhodes, 2400 Years gallery (same hours and admission ticket), together the best museums in town. The medieval collection highlights the importance of Christian Rhodes as a trade centre, with exotic merchandise placing the island in a trans-Mediterranean context. The Knights are represented with a display on their sugar-refining industry and a gravestone of a Grand Master; precious manuscripts and books precede a wing of post-Byzantine icons, moved here permanently from Panayía Kástrou. Across the courtyard in the north wing, "Ancient Rhodes" overshadows the official archeological museum by explaining the everyday life of the ancients, arranged topically (beauty aids, toys, cookware, worship and so on); highlights include a Hellenistic floor mosaic and a household idol of Hecate, goddess of the occult. On Tuesday and Saturday afternoons, there's a supplementary tour of the city walls (one hour starting at 2.45pm; ?6), beginning from a gate next to the palace and finishing at the Koskino?gate.

The heavily restored Street of the Knights (Odhós Ippotón) leads due east from the Platía Kleovoúlou in front of the Palace; the "Inns" lining it housed the Knights of St John, according to linguistic and ethnic affiliation, until the Ottoman Turks compelled them to leave for Malta after a six-month siege in which the defenders were outnumbered thirty to one. Today the Inns house various government offices and cultural institutions vaguely appropriate to their past, with occasional exhibitions, but the whole effect of the Italians' renovation is predictably sterile and stagey (indeed, nearby streets were used in the 1987 filming of Pascali's Island ).

At the bottom of the hill, the Knights' Hospital has been refurbished as the Archeological Museum (Tues-Sun 8.30am-3pm; ?2.40), though the arches and echoing halls of the building somewhat overshadow the appallingly labelled and presented contents - largely painted pottery dating from the sixth and seventh centuries BC. Behind the second-storey sculpture garden, the Hellenistic statue gallery is more accessible; in a rear corner stands the so-called "Marine Venus", beloved of Lawrence Durrell, but lent a rather sinister aspect by her sea-dissolved face - in contrast to the friendlier Aphrodite Bathing . Virtually next door is the Decorative Arts Collection (Tues-Sun 8.30am-3pm; ?1.50), gleaned from old houses across the Dodecanese; the most compelling artefacts are carved cupboard doors and chest lids painted in naive style with mythological or historical episodes.

Across the way stands the Byzantine Museum (Tues-Sun 8.30am-3pm; ?1.50), housed in the old cathedral of the Knights, who adapted the Byzantine shrine of Panayía Kástrou for their own needs. Medieval icons and frescoes lifted from crumbling chapels on Rhodes and Hálki, as well as photos of art still in situ , constitute the exhibits; it's worth a visit since most of the Byzantine churches in the Old Town and outlying villages are kept locked. The highlight of the collection is a complete fresco cycle from the domes of Thárri monastery dating from 1624, removed in 1967 to reveal much older work beneath.

If instead you head south from the Palace of the Grand Masters, it's hard to miss the most conspicuous Turkish monument in Rhodes, the rust-coloured Süleymaniye mosque . Rebuilt in the nineteenth century on foundations three hundred years older, it's currently closed and under scaffolding like most local Ottoman monuments, though it's soon to emerge from its lengthy refit in all its candy-striped glory. The Old Town is in fact well sown with mosques and mescids (the Islamic equivalent of a chapel), many of them converted from Byzantine shrines after the 1522 conquest, when the Christians were expelled from the medieval precinct. A couple of these mosques are still used by the sizeable Turkish-speaking minority here, some of them descended from Muslims who fled Crete between 1898 and 1913. Their most enduring civic contributions are, opposite the Süleymaniye, the Ottoman Library (Mon-Fri 7.30am-2.30pm & 6-9pm, Sat & Sun 8am-noon; tip to custodian), with a rich collection of early medieval manuscripts and Korans, and the imposing, still-functioning hamam , or Turkish bath, on Platía Ariónos up in the southwest corner of the medieval city (often shut for "repairs", specimen hours Tues 1-6pm, Wed-Fri 11am-6pm, Sat 8am-6pm; ?1.50, but ?0.90 Wed & Sat).

Heading downhill from the Süleymaniye mosque, you come to Odhós Sokrátous , once the heart of the Ottoman bazaar, and now the "Via Turista", packed with fur and jewellery stores pitched at cruise-ship tourists. Beyond the tiled central fountain in Platía Ippokrátous, Odhós Aristotélous leads into the Platía tón Evréon Martyron (Square of the Jewish Martyrs), named in memory of the large local community that was almost totally annihilated during the summer of 1944. Of the four synagogues which once graced Rhodes, only the ornate, arcaded Kal Kadosh Shalom (daily 10am-5pm; donation) on Odhós Simíou just to the south survives. It's maintained essentially as a memorial to the approximately 1800 Jews of Rhodes and Kós sent from here to the concentration camps; plaques in French - the language of educated Ottoman Jews across the east Aegean - commemorate the dead. At the rear of the building, a one-room museum , set up by a Los Angeles attorney of Jewish Rhodian descent, features archival photos of the community's life on Rhodes and in its far-flung diaspora in the Americas and Africa.

About 2km southwest of Mandhráki, the sparse, unenclosed remains of Hellenistic Rhodes - a restored theatre and stadium, plus a few columns of an Apollo temple - perch atop Monte Smith, the hill of Áyios Stéfanos renamed after a British admiral who used it as a watchpoint during the Napoleonic wars. The wooded site is popular with joggers and strollers, but for summer shade and greenery the best spot is probably Rodhíni Park , nearly 2km south of town on the road to Líndhos, and served by city bus route #3. The wooded Zimboúli ravine here, fed by natural springs, is home to ducks, peacocks and (in special pens) the native miniature Rhodian deer. Hellenistic rock-cut tombs , signposted via a separate side road at the south end of the park, constitute a final possible diversion.