Rhodes is one of those places privileged to have played an important role in history which has been almost uninterrupted from the earliest time of habitation down to the present. Over whole millennia, those who lived on the island found themselves at the centre of developments of their day. They created and left behind them monuments which contributed to world culture in all its spheres: architecture, town planning, literature, poetry, rhetoric, sculpture, ceramics, as well as athletics, siege techniques, and navigation. The result of this long history of activity is that the island is full of sights worth seeing; they cover the range of interests of the most discerning visitor, since they not only span the whole of antiquity but also the Byzantine period, the Middle Ages and the period of Turkish occupation right down until the period of the Italian occupation at the beginning of the 20th century. If one adds to all of these the natural beauty of the island, it is easy to understand why Rhodes is one of the most attractive places in the Mediterranean.