Profitis Ilias
Pine-forested mountain hotel where fallow deer roam free around Italian-era alpine chalets.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Profitis Ilias in Rhodes follows the pale-spotted fallow deer moving through the pine forest above the harbor, and the two legends about how they got there: one crediting Crusader knights guarding against venomous snakes, the other tracing them to the island's ancient name, Elafousa, land of many deer. It moves on to the 1920s, when Italian colonists built a mountain retreat here and named it for the animals, later adding a companion wing and a governor's villa nearby. Listen for the deer shifting in the brush at dusk, the same slow movement that gave both buildings their names.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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