The Colossus of Rhodes

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Geo: 36.4395, 28.2156

We're not seeing the Colossus but more about that later. Our tour today started out at 9am on a bus from the ship. We took a ride through the town of Rhodes, Greece. We saw the city, went up to the acropolis and returned to a palace and "street of the knights". We learned that Greece was controlled by the Romans, Ottoman, Italians and Germans up until 1948 when they again won their independence. The buildings were nice. The tour was short, only a few hours for the whole thing. The big thing about the palace was the mosaic floors. Mussolini had them installed while he was in power during WWII when the Italians had taken over Greece. They had planned to control Greece for many years but he was defeated along with the Nazis at the end of World War II. Much of the beautiful Greek art work was taken by the Romans to Rome many years ago and it's on display there.

Rhodes is famous for the Colossus, a 150 ft bronze statue shown at the entrance to the harbor of the city. The ships would sail between his legs to enter. Not! First, it wasn't tall enough for that. Second, it was never at the harbor but in the city. It only stood for a few years before an earthquake knocked it down. Every attempt to resurrect it was met with another earthquake so it finally just layed on the ground. When the Turks came, they took the bronze and scraped it. The only piece left is in Scandinavia in a museum. You see why we didn't get to see it.

After the tour was over at 12:30pm, we walked through the old city, all within the original walls surrounding it. We stopped for a beer (Mythos) and some mushroom soup. Karen wandered through the shops and we people-watched too. Mom found the same hat she wanted from that guy yesterday for €10. Good. The ship sailed at 5:30pm but we returned early around 3. Showered and went to the pool to hang out.

We got word that our Israel stops have been cancelled due to the comments made by John Kerry yesterday. That's five ports cancelled on this cruise. They were replaced with other stops in Turkey and Greece, not so exciting as Egypt or Israel but under the circumstances, it's understandable. We were hoping to get there before my buddy Obama took us out again. No matter where we go, he's there.

Not much time to set any shore activities up for the next couple days. I'll try to get Mom on the shuttle boat to town but I think she wants to veg. Holland America has a few available but we may just hang out on the ship until Santorini.

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Photos

Palace
Viewing the palace and the mosaic floors which are in all the rooms, even the basement.

Street of the Knights
Walking down this ancient street form the 1300s

Street of the Knights
Mom looks happy here. She ripped off a rock from the street and put it in my pocket.

Checking these cannonballs
These were fired at the walls of the city by the Ottomans form Istanbul. They were shot from catapults.

Shopping
Mom looking at stuff. I think it was seasonings.

Having a beer
Sitting at a side walk cafe in old town Rhodes having a beer, a Greek beer.

Ice cream time
I'm shooting again while she holds my mango ice cream cone. She had strawberry.