Kókkini Porta Rossa

Kókkini Porta means the Red Door, and Porta Rossa says it again in Italian, in case anyone missed it. The people of Rhodes gave the house its name after the Ottomans took the island in 1522, and the door at number 24 is red today, under a white timber bay window. It goes back to 1340, as the residence of the knight who commanded the garrison of St John's Gate, with the garrison's arsenal in part of it, and it is still the first building inside the gate. Greek, Jewish and Turkish families later lived under its roof, and the six suites are named after people who lived and worked here. The restoration left the old shapes in white plaster: in one suite the bed lies on a platform of old timbers inside a pointed alcove, a kilim in front of it. Michalis, on the ground floor, has the one plunge pool, in a walled garden of its own.

Recommended for grown-ups who would rather sleep inside the Medieval Town's walls than look at them from a resort; the house takes nobody under 17. Breakfast runs to several courses, from produce bought each day and herbs the hotel grows, served in the garden or the salon. Out through the gate, a farmers' market fills the little square on Thursday mornings. There is no restaurant, so dinner is in town, and afterwards the house bar is open and self-service. The beach, at Elli, is a drive, and four suites are 18 steps up with no lift; Orhan, on the ground floor, has a level shower. Of the four upstairs, Deniz is the one to want: deniz is Turkish for sea, and from its hayat, a wooden-roofed balcony, the sea shows over the rooftops and the defensive wall.