Day 89 of 111. The Acropolis, Athens, Greece

The Propylaia is the monumental entrance to the sanctuary of the Acropolis. It was built between 437-432 BC. It also faces several significant Greek sites. Salamis Bay, in the distance, is where the Greeks defeated the Persians in a great naval battle. More importantly it faces the Pnyx (hill in the lower left-hand picture with a large flat platform) where the world’s earliest known democratic legislature was held.

The rock (lower right-hand picture) is call the Areopagus (Ares Rock) which functioned as the location for a court trying deliberate homicide. More importantly it is the site where the Apostle Paul made his great “Altar To An Unknown God” speech (Acts 17:24). You can see an engraved plaque at the base of the rock containing the sermon.

I was confused about the relationship between the Acropolis and the Parthenon. The Acropolis is the highest part of the city and on the Acropolis there are various monuments. The most striking is the Parthenon, an ancient temple to Athena.

Extensive restoration efforts are ongoing. You can see the cranes and scaffolding in the pictures and workers were busy inside the Parthenon even as we walked around the outside of the monument. Portions of the pillars and cross beams are being replaced with new white marble. The original temple would have been the same white color. The marble contains the mineral, iron. Iron compounds that form over time give the ancient building its distinctive reddish tint. At the top of the the front and rear entrances to the Parthenon, huge friezes depicting the Gods and Greek Warriors adorned the structure. The horse heads and human body are just a sample of what they might have looked like. The real friezes are located in the British Museum in England.

Another structure on the Acropolis is the Ionic Temple which features the Porch of the Maidens (Caryatide). It you look closely you’ll notice that the Maidens to the left have their left leg bent while the Maidens to the right have their right leg bent thus preserving the symmetry of the porch.

Day 88 of 111. Rhodes Town, Greece.

Rhodes is an island in Greece, but it is also a city in Rhodes. There is also an ancient city of Rhodes inside the modern city of Rhodes. We visited this ancient city and a large building called the Palace of the Grand Masters. The original building was a fortress for the city with three moats and some of the walls were several meters thick. Most of the original fortress was destroyed and a building was rebuilt by the Italians when they occupied the city. The plan was to make this the summer palace of Mussolini, but while the building was finished and furnished, the start of World War II put an end to plans of a summer palace and the building was never lived in. It is currently a museum. Many of the mosaics in the floor are still intact, but much of the furniture and statues that were in the palace have been removed by various countries.

The building and the medieval street (see the bottom picture) show the influences of France, Greece, and the Ottoman Empire. This street (called the Street of the Knights) is the most authentically medieval street and now houses several foreign consulates. One interesting idea that I learned was that many of the statues that were carved were done without faces. As one emperor replaced another, it took too long to make an entirely new statue, they simply replaced the face in the statue. This was apparently also done with Greek statues which is why so many of them are found without heads… the heads were replaced from time to time.

Day 88 of 111. Acropolis of Lindos, Rhodes, Greece

Acropolis means “high city”. The building at the highest point of a city is the Acropolis. Lindos has an Acropolis that we visited today and later in the trip (tomorrow) we will visit the Acropolis in Athens. Visiting this site involved quite a few steps… thus the donkey ride industry. The ruins in Lindos are in much better shape than those in Athens (so said on of the other visitors) because the air pollution is much lower and thus the acid rain damage on the limestone is much reduced. Much of the Lindos Acropolis dates back before Christ. At the top of their Acropolis was a temple to Athena. This has been partially recreated. Because of this temple, there was an ancient tourist trade in Lindos.

Looking down from the Acropolis you get a great view of the white houses of the city of Lindos. On the other side you can look down into the water. The Apostle Paul landed in the bay to spread Christianity. Also, there is a cliff that stretches out into the water that was part of the movie, The Guns of Navarone.

This was an interesting place to visit because of ancient portions of the building. A close up look at the tops of columns and ancient staircases boggles the mind since they date back so far.

Day 88 of 111. Lindos, Island of Rhodes, Greece

The city of Lindos is located about 30 miles from the city of Rhodes and is located on the base of a hill. On top of the hill is the Lindos Acropolis/fortress. The trip up the hill is fairly strenuous, so a good business was established in donkey rides to the entrance of the Acropolis. One striking feature of Lindos is the collection of pebble mosaics in the streets and sidewalks. Many of these are very decorative, but our guide also said that some of these act as air conditioning… water can be poured on the pebbles and the evaporation cools the areas above.

There was a beautiful Greek Orthodox Church in the city of Lindos. The steeple and the cross in the wall marked the church. We were not allowed to take photos inside the church, but the wall to ceiling frescos and icons were breathtaking to see. I sat and stared at them trying to memorize the images and feelings that they invoked. We visited Lindos on a Sunday and the priest was still in his vestments since he had just finished a Sunday service. We could hear the chanting as we approached the church. This small building made a big impact.

Day 86 of 111. Transiting the Suez Canal

At the very northern part of the Red Sea is the Suez Canal, our entrance to the Mediterranean Sea. This canal is different from the Panama Canal in that there are no locks, that is, the canal is all at sea level. Floating northward, it was interesting to know that on our left (port side) we saw the continent of Africa and on our right (starboard side) we saw the continent of Asia, the Sinai Desert, but both sides were Egypt.

Since portions of the canal allow for only one way traffic, the ships needed to form a convoy before entering the canal so that they can pass each other at the same time in the section for two way traffic (opened in 2015). So our convoy was formed last night at the Red Sea end. We were in third position in our convoy behind a huge box-shaped ship that was carrying a shipment of new cars. We entered the canal around 5:30 a.m. and spent most of the day transiting the canal. We reached the Mediterranean Sea around 4:00 p.m.

Along the way we saw some interesting sights.
The cone-shaped structures are pigeon traps. Pigeons enter but only leave when they appear on a local menu. Apparently Egyptians enjoy them as an entree, perhaps New York might learn a lesson from the Egyptians.

We saw a blue dredging barge which is used to keep the sand from re-filling the canal. In the picture you can see the dredging drill at the front of the ship. The drill is lowered into the canal and begins to drill into the bottom sand. A giant vacuum sucks up the water with the sand and deposits it onto the shore. It’s a constant battle.

We also saw this beautiful little Mosque on Sinai Desert side of the canal. The palm trees and the expansive desert made a great picture.