Eleousa Ghost Village
Fodor's choice
Drive west of Epta Piges and you'll come to the ghost village of Eleousa (formerly Campochiaro), one of many follies built under Italian rule (1912–43). The central island was useful to the Italians for its resources and agricultural potential, so villages such as the one here were created in the 1930s to accommodate workers shipped in from Northern Italy. Roads were built to link it to the capital and other pre-fab towns, and an official residence was created for the island's governor. Like everything the Italians did on Rhodes, it was a show of power designed to promote their Fascist ideology to locals. It didn't last. Under a new governor, the village became a military outpost and a prison for Greek insurrectionists. When Italy surrendered in 1943 during World War II, it lost control of the islands and the last Italian families here disappeared. In later years the town was renamed Eleousa and its abandoned buildings used as a sanitarium for tuberculosis patients, but even this fell out of use by the 1970s. Today, its eerie vision of Italian "greatness" provides a remarkable glimpse into a strange past.
