Our Greek Odyssey -- Rhodes and Lindos

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There is nothing much common between me and one of the ‘Seven Wonders of the ancient world’ namely the Colossus of Rhodes, a statue which was 107 feet tall, made with bronze framework supported by masonry inside and covered by brass plate; which stood on the Island of Rhodes. It possibly served as a lighthouse.

However, there IS one thing common between us - weak knees. When an earthquake hit Rhodes, the Colossus broke at the knees and collapsed. I collapse even without an earthquake when I have to walk uphill, because my knees too give way.

{Avi has suggested one more commonality between the Colossus and me. “You are equally brassy, brazen” he says. This is possibly because I insisted on calling our 4-day cruise a ‘Greek Odyssey’ and he does not agree with it. So, we will ignore his nastiness.}

So, before booking a shore-excursion to the Rhodes and Lindos, I made enquiries at the travel-desk of the ship and was assured that at Lindos, mules will be available for climbing to the top of the 500-feet hill.

Lindos is about 55 kms away from Rhodes, our port of call, but the one-hour bus-journey went through such beautiful countryside and the guide was so witty that the journey did not become boring.
The weather too had improved and we had a crisp, clear, sunny day. My prayers to Apollo were obviously answered.

The guide told us that building a house anywhere on the island of Rhodes is difficult because everywhere they dig, they find some ruins and then the Archeological department takes over and stops the construction.

He also told us that Gypsies camp on Rhodes from time to time and in their ‘bazaar’ everything but everything on earth is available - from Japanese Electronics to ‘freshly plucked underwear from the bushes’ that the Gypsies have purloined.

We came to the base of the Lindos and looked up.

My God! Do we have to climb up that?

There are two paths up the hill where the ‘Acropolis of Lindos’ is situated and where the Temple of Lindos-Athena stood in ancient times. One is a paved road, with well-cut steps and lined with touristy shops and the other is the mule-path hugging the craggy hillside. On this path, the other side is a sheer drop into the ocean.

Majority of the tourists took the former path. Only I and a Texan girl, who was brought up on a farm, decided to ride the mules. Our muleteer called her ‘The Texan cowgirl’ but he had no clue about what to call me, since very few Indians visit the place.

Avi decided to walk but took the mule-path along with us.

It was a most exhilarating ride. The scenery is wonderful. Lindos is one of the most scenic spots anywhere on the face of the earth.

These mules are mistakenly called ‘asses’ or ‘donkeys’ but they are much taller and much hardier. Riding a mule is almost like riding a pony. (I had ridden a pony on the Badrinath-Kedarnath trek.)

So, happily I rode the mule while Avi panted up the hill and nastily called our procession a ‘dhind’.

(Here, I must explain that a ‘persona-non-grata’, who has committed a crime against society in a Maharashtrian village, is often made to ride a donkey facing the tail as a punishment and the villagers abuse him/her and this is called a ‘dhind’.)

Of the acropolis of the Lindos and the temple of Athena, only 8 broken columns remain, but they add to the beauty of the place.

The most interesting was the bas-relief carving of a ship on the hillside beside the steps. It shows what kind of warships they used to have.

From the backside you can see the beautiful ‘Bay of Lindos’. It did not have any boats moored inside while we were visiting. However, there IS a passage into the bay from the sea and small boats do visit it. I am providing a link below to support that statement.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Baia_Lindos.jpg

In fact, in ancient times, that is how pilgrims to the Temple used to come - by boat into the Bay and then climb up. Present-day tourists come in cars/coach from what was the backside of the temple in those days.

On the way back to Rhodes town, we were taken to a ceramics shed - the cottage-industry of a family of three. The husband made the pottery, his sister and wife painted it and fired it in a kiln. Being handmade, it was fairly expensive.

The technique of making the painted pottery is a living art for thousands of years in this region.
The most impressive and apparently intact castle is the ‘Palace of the Grand Master in Rhodes. I say ‘apparently’ because it was largely destroyed and what we see now is ‘reconstructed’.

This palace was built in the 14th century by a military order of monks known variously as ‘Knights of St. John’, ‘Knights of Rhodes’, ‘Knights Hospitallar’ and ‘Knights of Malta’ when their base was shifted to Malta.

The history of the religious/military Order is quite interesting and I recommend the readers to read it on Wikipedia.

The Order had begun with a very noble aim - to care for the Christian pilgrims in Jerusalem. Later it underwent various transformations - from care-givers to military protectors, to just plain pirates and slave-traders as bad as the Barbary Pirates, whom they were trying to contain.

The original Palace was destroyed by an explosion but the reconstructed buildings still give us some idea about the grand style in which the Knights used to live. Their vows of ‘poverty and chastity’ had become ‘null and void’ in the later stages of their history.

All said and done, the Palace and castle is grand and impressive.

The cobble-stoned ‘Street of the Knights’ is lined on both sides with the hostels for the Knights. Each hostel was occupied by Knights who spoke a common language. Thus there is a French hostel, an Italian one etc. Nowadays, they serve as embassies of their countries.

The harbor of Rhodes is also quite picturesque.

I rate every island on the basis of its scenic beauty as well as its ancient history. Thus Rhodes Island is quite high on my list because it had incomparable Lindos. Patmos and Mykonos would have lower points.

However, Avi rates every island on the merits of one thing only - the Internet connectivity. Thus, he rates Mykonos and Patmos quite high because he could visit an Internet Café there and download his office correspondence. He is not happy with Rhodes or Crete because even though these are much larger islands with bigger towns, there were hardly any Internet cafes. He could locate only two. His special grudge was about the youngsters who were occupying the computers to play games and did not vacate these for him to check his all important emails. He quoted Mark Twain by saying “’Youth’ is wasted on these youngsters”.

We had connectivity on board the ship also but it was terribly expensive.

How silly people can be! I mean, is ‘connectivity’ a measure you should apply while on a sightseeing tour?

That way, the Nea Kameni Island that we visited in the caldera of Santorini later would have zero points.

However, Nea Kameni is in a class by itself and cannot be judged by either norms.

As a postscript, I would add that many scenes from the ‘Guns of Navarone’ were filmed on location at Rhodes and Lindos.

I must see ‘Guns of Navarone’ once again.

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