Captain's Houses

The whitewashed houses of Lindos are extraordinary in themselves, but the captain's houses — the mansions built by prosperous sea captains from the 15th through 18th centuries — are in a category of their own. They sit behind walls on the narrow lanes, invisible from outside until a gate reveals a courtyard paved with black and white pebble mosaics (chochlakia) of startling intricacy.

Several captain's houses are open as restaurants, cafés, or small museums; others are private homes. The distinction between the three is not always obvious from outside, which makes wandering the village lanes more rewarding than it might be in a less layered place. The house now used as a restaurant often called the "Captain's House" restaurant has one of the finest preserved interiors in the village, with original painted wooden ceilings from the 17th century.

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A story
The pebble mosaic courtyards — called chochlakia — were made with black and white river pebbles arranged in geometric and figurative patterns, a craft tradition that arrived in the Dodecanese from Constantinople and was refined over centuries by local craftsmen. The best courtyards have patterns so intricate they would pass for floor mosaics in a Roman villa; they were made, in the 15th and 16th centuries, by sea captains using wealth earned in the trade routes of the eastern Mediterranean.