“And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.”

- Paulo Coehlo, The Alchemist

I read this for the first time five years ago, when I started high school, and it stuck with me. Fate, luck, blessings, karma, we all believe in something. My 20th birthday sure felt like a blessed day. I always had this idea about me shooting next to an oleander when in Greece. Couple of years ago, I missed this opportunity when I visited Thassos. This year, one day before my birthday I found in Rhodes the last Oysho dress I've been dreaming about all summer at  50% off.  'All I need now is a tree' I told myself and the next day, there I was, walking on the magic streets of the Old Town when something pink caught my peripheral vision. Not only it was the biggest and most beautiful oleander that I've seen in Rhodes, but it was also on a quaint street, away from the tourist cram. Whenever I look at the photos I remember Stephen Chbosky's brilliant line from 'The Perks of Being a Wallflower' and I swear I was infinite.

The Medieval Town of Rhodes is one of the most enchanting places I've ever visited! It has about 200 streets with no names, so it was a real pleasure getting lost there a couple of times (although mom was genuinely scared). Most of the times you'll get around thanks to the many maps they have in the city, but in case you panic you can ask for the Sokratous Street, which is their main street, with tons of souvenir shops, local furs and leather stores. The old town has ten gates, and I recommend you enter it via Amboise Gate, the one near the Palace of the Grand Master because it's near the New Town (the high street shops are 5 minutes away from this gate) and you reach the top of the Sokratous Street, so the only way is going down the hill, which makes for a casual walk. Once you've reached the end of the street, and you're at the Liberty Gate, you can exit the Old Town and you're in the port. Couple of hundred metres on the seafront and you're at the place where the famous Colossus of Rhodes used to be- now there are two towers with dears which show where the feet of the Colossus used to be- I was genuinely impressed, especially because I was obsessed with the seven wonders of the world back when I was nine.

I've included an overload of photos in this post, because there are so many beautiful places I discovered on the quaint streets, so I really felt like I should share my travel tips with you, as always. The ice cream in the Old Town is divine, it's the first place where I've found orange ice cream and I swear it was like a frozen orange fresh, so good. Also, I've seen the most incredible garden: Sokratous Garden, a place with lovely greek deco, great beverages and an impressive amount of orange trees, lemon trees, mostly every tree viable in Greece you can imagine. I've included travel notes above most of the photos in this post.

Fashion wise, it was a really hot day so I chose my white Zara skirt because of its light fabric and my new nude sandals. I've had the hot pink top for two years now, yet I never had anything to match it with until this summer. Of course, you don't stand a chance without having a hat on in the sun, so I wore my new hat, the one I wrote about here.

♪ Parov Stelar - The Sun ♪

I've just started to sort all my photos from Rhodes (I didn't realise I took so many until a couple of days ago my iphone didn't let me take any because my memory was full)- the thing is Rhodes is so charming, full of beautiful beaches, rocky mountains, astonishing trees that it's hard to resist the urge to snap everything you see, and I'll make sure to post the travel photos in the next posts.

We stayed in Ixia, a really popular resort which is near the capital, so every night we'd usually end up wandering on the quaint streets of the Old Town of Rhodos. Ixia is most known for the powerful waves the Aegean Sea has in the area, so most people choose it as a destination for windsurfing. Therofore, you can't really swim for a long time because of the water currents, but that doesn't mean you're going to have a bad time if you don't know how to surf! Me and my family made up a lot of fun games, like fighting with the waves, who can stay more still without being carried by the waves and it just doubled the fun! Of course, the Mediterranean Sea in Lindos is so quiet and clear that we rented cars for two days and went to the beach there, because sometimes you need a good old-fashioned swim (more on the city of Lindos in a future post).

As for my beach attire, every year I promise myself I won't buy another beach dress. This year I couldn't help it either, because I finally found my dream dress: a butterfly shaped one, white, with adorable details and a really good price from Marks & Spencer.  As for the hat, I was going to "Mission Impossible : Rogue Nation" with my family two days before we left for Rhodes  and I was complaining how I never find a summer hat. Two minutes after this talk, we pass the C&A windows and I see it. After the movie,  I rush to the store and it's nowhere to be found, except on that mannequin in the window. It was a whole adventure, because it was the last one and it didn't have the tag so they had no way to scan it. Fortunately, they managed to find the code in the end and I have to say the hat saved me from the unbearable heat we had in Rhodes! I got the sunnies last year from Accessorize and I still adore them and the swimsuit is from Oysho.