Just outside the Medieval Ag. Athanasiou Gate is the Catholic Church of St. Francis, built in 1939. This church is the work of architect Bernabiti. The sculptor Monteleone curved the 4.35m high statue of the saint, made of pure white Rhodian stone.

The Ancient Acropolis

The hill of the ancient acropolis of Rhodes , which occupies the west part of the town, was called St. Stephen in the medieval period. After a church of this name, of which no traces have survived. Later, foreign travelers in particular, followed by the Rhodian populace, referred to the hill as Monte Smith, after an officer in British fleet who erected a look-out post called the Simaphoron during the Napoleonic Wars, at a point from which the surrounding seas could be observed. The lookout post was demolished in 1965. The hill is 110m. at its highest point and access in antiquity was mainly from the east.

Recent excavations have shown that in Diagoridon Street there were monumental vaulted buildings that marked the boundary of the extensive area of the Stadium, Odeion, Gymnasium and other structures. Today, the Stadium and Odeion are restored probably in their Roman form.

Above the Odeion there is a steep slope with a series of stepped terraces, up to the summit of the hill. An area, the size of a building block with a side of 100m., was leveled on the top of the hill. This entire area was walled in with well-worked blocks of stone, to form the precinct of Pythian Apollo, the dominating monument in which was a Doric temple built in the middle of the west half of the precinct.