A Modern Visit to the Ancient World

The diary of world vacationers – Larry and Kathy from their 2024 journey to the Mediterranean

Athens

We arrived  at our Viking Ship at 8:00 PM in Athens, Greece 25 hours after we left POC, the spotlight being the Baileys Irish Crème I talked the flight attendant into pouring into my 1/2 eaten ice cream cup I had for desert. Yum, yum, good!! Greece solely has 11 million folks and 5 million stay within the Athens space. Our tour right now was a drive to the traditional metropolis of Corinth and the Corinth canal. The canal was first considered within the seventh century BC, it was deserted and an overland portage street was constructed they usually towed the ships over the isthmus. A number of makes an attempt to dig the canal by way of the limestone have been tried and failed till 1893 when it was accomplished. It’s too slender for contemporary ships being solely 80 ft vast at water degree. But it surely saved miles of journey round Greece to the Mediterranean Ocean making the realm one of the vital used for all commerce. There have been nearly 500,000 folks in Corinth however a lot of the outdated metropolis is roofed by the brand new metropolis and is unavailable for excavations, the town middle has been uncovered and the fountains referred within the Bible by the Apostle Paul have been uncovered. Corinth’s unique title was Sparta.

This space was the house of Alexander The Nice and his big Greek Macedonia Empire. Greece is named the beginning place for Democracy and fashionable Western Civilization, Philosophy, Theatre, Science, Arithmetic, Drama and the Olympic Video games.

Crete

Greece has 6,000 islands. Crete is the biggest island of Greece. It could hint civilization again to 7 century BC and now has about 500,000 inhabitants.

The island has 5 mountain ranges, the peak at 8,000 ft and snow masking the peaks. It produces a variety of olives (Greece has 140 million olive timber), grapes and raisins. It is vitally fairly and inexperienced and coated with olive timber and vineyards ( it was as soon as coated by forests however whereas underneath the rule of the Venetians they used the timber to construct 1,000s of ships and underneath the Ottoman Empire the forests have been burned to rut out rebels). The apostle Paul stopped right here and left his disciple Titus to hold on the work (90% of the folks in Greece are Greek Orthodox). 

Our tour right now took us by way of the mountains to the archaeological websites of the Palace of Knossos and the village of Arolithos.  The Palace of Knossos relics date again 4,000 years and the village beneath it 7,000 years. It’s also identified for its mythology, Zeus was born right here in a cave up within the mountains and the Palace of Knossos was the setting for Theseus (who was in love with the kings daughter Ariadne) needed to struggle the Minotaur (half bull and half man) in a labyrinth for her hand, she gave him a ball of string to unwind so he might get out. A lot of the palace has been broken by a number of earthquakes on the island.

It’s cool right here 49 to 65 so we didn’t spend any time on the seashores. Once we acquired on the bus it was very quiet, after a few minutes of silence I whispered to the couple in entrance of us “It positive is quiet in right here, are you aware the one who died?” The woman laughed however the husband mentioned “With the age of all of these on the bus, that’s not humorous”. It did break the ice and we visited till the funeral.

Rhodes

At present was fairly a day.  It began with a stroll through the Grand Masters Palace positioned within the outdated medieval metropolis of Rhodes. The town has 4 units of partitions with motes in between that have been used a killing fields . It was inbuilt 1310 by The Knights Hospitallers and was not ever defeated till 1522 when the 7,000 Knights held out towards 300,000 from the Ottoman Empire for six months and have been allowed to depart.  The Palace of the Grand Grasp is magnificent, it was blown up when a powder room exploded and collapsed in 1855. It was rebuilt by the Italians to be the summer season dwelling of Mussolini 1940.  It had 190 rooms and He by no means noticed it.

Rhodes was the house of the legendary solar god Helios and the house of one among The 7 wonders of  the traditional world  The Collossus of Rhodes (a 108 ft bronze statue of the Solar god Helios on the entrance of the harbor, it was the identical dimension because the Statue of Liberty, fabricated from bronze 280 BC).

We then took a 1 hour bus journey to the opposite facet of the island to the attractive White Home metropolis of Lindos and the cliff high acropolis the place the temple of Athena sat. We needed to stroll down into the town after which 280 steps as much as the highest of the acropolis. It was fairly a view.

At present was fairly a day.

Troy (Canakkale)

Turkey

Troy is a seaport in Turkey that units on the narrowest a part of the Dardanelles Straits that connects the Sea of Marmara (the Asian facet of Turkey) to Sea of Aegon (the Europe facet of Turkey) and is of main significance commercially and militarily, it’s the main sea entry for Russia and Ukraine ship from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean. From Greek Mythology Helle, the daughter of Athamas, drowned within the Dardanelles Straits within the legend of The Golden Fleece. Additionally the Greeks used a fantastic wood horse to invade and destroy Troy. The Trojan Wars, twelfth and eleventh BC , occur when Greece attacked Troy as a result of Paris of Troy took off with the Queen of Sparta which led to the deaths of Achilles, Ajax and Hector, thus the ruse of the Trojan Horse. There are literally 10 ruins of Troy as a result of they saved rebuilding on high of the earlier technology. Troy dates again over 6,000 years and was fortified by a 30 ft high-18 ft vast wall. Earthquakes are a significant component within the ruins lover this a part of the world.

(The Computer virus was a present from the studio from after they filmed Troy with Brad Pitt. They mentioned after the film tourism went up 100 instances.)

Ephesus

The coast of Turkey is lower than 7 miles from the coast of Rhodes, Greece, but the Greek/Roman metropolis of Ephesus is Turkish and the island off its coast in Greek, it makes being neighbors tough.  Turkey is named “The Cradle of Civilization, it’s the bridge between Asia and Europe. Due to its location it has been invaded by many various civilizations: Lucian, Persian, Greek, Roman,  Byzantine and Ottoman , conquered and left in ruins. The Nice Temple of Artemis (one of many 7 wonders of the traditional world) and Theater Basilica of St John in Ephesus and Hagia Sophie in Estanbul are the relics left behind. Ephesus is the most effective preserved ruins of the Greco/Roman rule. Ephesus performed a significant function within the growth of Christianity with St Paul launching lots of his missionary journeys from right here and it’s the lastly resting place for Mary, the mom of Christ.

Though it’s now in Turkey it was one of the vital vital and oldest Greek cities.

Istanbul

Half of  Istanbul sits on the European continent and half on Asian continent, separated by the water of the Bosporus Straits. Twenty million folks stay there whereas the inhabitants of Turkey is 87 million.

Constructed by Constantine the Nice within the forth century and referred to as Constantinople, it was proclaimed the capital of the Jap Roman Empire (Byzantine Empire), he legalized Christianity and is answerable for its unfold. Within the 14th century it fell to the Ottoman Empire, they transformed Grand Christian Cathedral (Hagia Sophia) into an imperial mosque. They revitalized the town into an imperial metropolis and have been tolerant of any folks keen to return there and pay taxes. Throughout WWI an ethnic cleaning of the town’s Christians occurred. 1919 to 1922 the Turkish Warfare occurred and the Ottomans have been defeated and thrown out and independence declared.

The port of entry for the port is spectacular, positioned underneath water and beneath sea degree, it could possibly maintain at the least 40 buses and nonetheless look sterile. Canine on the road neutered, tagged, launched and fed by everybody, all of them look fats and lazy. Cats are in every single place.

The Black Sea is 5 ft larger than the others due to freshwater flowing in so the present is at all times towards the Mediterranean ocean and may be very sturdy. The Straits of Bosporus are so slender they permit boat site visitors to go solely in a single course for 12 hours then change to the opposite.

Kathy went on the tour right now of Hagia Sophia mosque constructed in 532 AD and a stroll through the outdated metropolis. Tomorrow we transfer to a resort for two days in Istanbul.

Istanbul II

Final day in Istanbul. Yesterday we disembarked from the ship and did a full day tour then we sat and had espresso whereas everybody went to the Hagia Sophia, however ended up strolling through The Blue Mosque and The Basilica Cisterns. (We’re about by way of with Cathedrals and Mosques) however the Basilica Cisterns have been unimaginable. Constructed within the sixth century to retailer water for Constantinople, 60 ft deep and holding 20 million gallons of water (2 soccer fields 60 ft deep) it was constructed by 7,000 slaves and is just one of many cisterns within the metropolis. They’ve a metallic grated pathway to stroll through the cistern that changed the boats that they used to make use of for excursions and the altering coloured lights make it a phenomenal place to see. They’ve concert events there and one was in course of whereas we have been there, positively a spotlight of our time in Istanbul.