Panagia Tsambika Monastery nearby the village of Archangelos is a tiny white Byzantine church perched high at 984 ft (300m) with commanding coastal views both north over Kolymbia where the avenue of eucalyptus trees can be picked out and the grid layout appreciated and south over Tsambika beach and beyond to distant Lindos. Inside is miraculous eleventh-century icon of the Blessed Virgin found on the mountain by a childless , infertile couple who later conceived a child.

 

The legend is that if a childless woman wishing to conceive walks barefoot up the mountain to pray to the Virgin, she will be blessed with children. Children so inspired are named after the monastery, Tsambikos for a boy and Tsambika for a girl, a name unique to Rodos. As it is so common on the island, it is more likely that fertile women named their offspring after the monastery by way of thanks that it had not been necessary to undergo this ritual. The saints day is 7 September, an especially potent occasion for the infertile.