Sunday, October 29, 2006
Marmaris-Rodos
I just got back this morning from Marmaris, and either it got colder up here or I just spent a week in paradise... maybe both...
Here's the rundown of my eight day trip south to the Turkish port of Marmaris and the Greek Island of Rhodes:
Day 1-3 Marmaris:
We left Ankara mid morning on Friday the 20th and arrived in Marmaris about 11 hours later. Marmaris was founded in the 16th century but has been little more than a fishing village until recently. It was nice to take a day bus for a change, we got to see some more of the countryside, but ultimately these things are really tiring. In 1522 Suleyman the Magnificent visited the town on his way to capturing Rhodes from the Knights of St. John, and he was heard to mumble "mimar as" which in Turkish means "hang the architect" and thus modern Marmaris was born. At first impression Marmaris is a very odd place. It is bursting with British and German tourists and hundreds of businesses that cater overhwelmingly in that direction. There are sandy beaches, and boat trips much like Kaş or any other Aegean/Mediterranean resort, but nowhere else do you get so inundated with neon signs advertizing "British Food" or "Chinese Food" or "Mexican Food". Indeed one restaurant a block from my hotel, standing on a corner, used its three façades to advertise itself as specialists in each of these cuisines. You really had to search through the dozens of touristy eateries for a good döner or pide. The water on the beach was kind of dirty and on a whole the first impression of the city was dissapointing. However, you do realize something about the country by visiting a place like this. This is the kind of thing that drives the Turkish economy. Pandering to Brits and other Europeans as much cheaper alternative to the Riviera or Italian coast, Marmaris never ceases to pull in a lot of money. Certainly this place was the closest I've seen here to a Jersey Shore type town. Nonetheless we had a relatively enjoyable time because it was out of season, meaning less crowds and cheaper prices.
Day 3-6 Rodos Town:
Early Monday morning we left on a large hydrofoil for Rhodes. The trip was about an hour plus the time waiting in customs. The lines were a bit long because the put all non-EU passports in the same line, shuffling me and my crew in with the Turks. Rodos town sits on the very northern tip of the island and is the largest town and governing center for the island. The makeup of the town is equal parts Medieval fortress, Hellenistic ruin, Ottoman outpost and beach resort. As soon as you step through the gates Europe hits you right in the face. The modern town is full of fancy outlets for Lacoste and Diesel with all sorts of high end cafes and gyro stands and crepe shops. Eating here consisted of pork, pork and more pork (being in a muslim country for two plus months, this is one of the things you start to miss). Aside from pork gyros, bacon, and pork chops, we got to sample moussakka. Moussakka is an interesting dish, a layered potato square with eggplant, onion, minced meat and spices all baked and served piping hot. It is very much a potato lasagna. The other European aspect that hits you is English. While in Turkey, English only gets you so far, not knowing any Turkish won't get you anywhere in the back country and not much farther outside of Istanbul and the embassy districts. In Greece, nearly everyone knows at least some English, from the restaraunteurs to the beach peddlers, all the road signs are in two languages, and even many advertisements don't even sport the Greek script.
The main attraction of the town is the Medieval, walled city. Inside resides three Ottoman mosques which are almost all under renovation and not in use, the Palace of the Grand Masters, where the head of the Knights of St. John resided, an Ottoman era clocktower and library, and hundreds of small shops and restaurants selling everything from medieval weaponry to novelty artwork. The sites are all pretty neat to see, the most impressive being the Palace. Inside is a museum that boasts a rather large collection of Byzantine floor mosaics, pottery, and sculpture. The site is also of some interest because for a few years Cem Sultan, brother of Sultan Beyazit II was help prisoner here before he was transferred to the Vatican. He was the first member of the line of Osman to be imprisoned outside of the country and the power politics of the time that swirled around him are quite interesting.
Outside the walls right by the port are two columns with sculptures of a deer on the capital of each. This is the site where the Colossus of Rhodes stood in ancient times, though no remnants remain of this former wonder of the world. A twenty minute walk northwest of the old town is the Ancient Acropolis. This Acropolis has three main features, a stadium, odeon (small theatre) and the remnants of a Temple to Athena. The Odeon is incredibly well preserved and probably sat a few hundred people. The stadium is on a much smaller scale than the one we saw in Aphrodisias, but does have many differences. The stadium in Aphrodisias certainly hosted more "Gladiator" type games with lions and chariot races. This stadium, as some of the remains built into the group highlight, was more of the "Olympic" type which certainly emphasized throwing events and running (see pictures). The Temple is mostly in ruins and rubble, but one tetrapylon column set still remains.
Days 6-8 Lindos:
On Thursday morning we hopped on a bus and travelled down the south east coast about an hour to the town of Lindos. Lindos is an astonsihingly beautiful town built around an acropolis that juts out into the sea and accompanies a calm inlet with a sandy beach. Staying in the town we were able to lodge ourselves in a small villa owned by this older man and his sister for only 35 Euro a night (typical in season price is 90 Euro!). All the buildings are one or two stories and whitewashed. No cars or buses are allowed down the towns narrow streets, so all transport is either foot, donkey or mo-ped. The beach there was fantastic and very relaxing. While tourists were still abound, you definitely got more of a feel of the typical Greek village here. I would certainly make this town an equivalent to the Turkish Safranbolu. One thing that is quite prevalent here is the religion. As much as Safranbolu was tight knit and Muslim, this town was tight-knit and Greek Orthodox Christian. The second morning we were led around the town by the female hermit of a nearby monastary and shown a few of the towns old churches. Certainly this was one of the more interesting tour guides I've had on the trip. This woman is an American born sister at the St. Michael the Archangel Monastery in central Rhodes. She came there a decade and a half ago after being on faculty in the science department at Harvard. She is an expert iconographer and theologian (but as I'll explain, not a historian) and was certainly enamored of her way of life, her faith and this town. The churches are all very very small, though they date as old as a thousand years old. Most of them are dedicted to one of three saints, George, Dimitri or Minas. Our guide aptly explained to us the adoration the people of the town had to these particular saints, and mentioned that if your looking for a good party, show up on their feast days (free souvlaki and ouzo for everybody!). Now I trusted this woman insofar as her training in iconography, it was certainly enlightening, but I did bristle a bit of her mention of Turks and Muslims. Clearly, all this woman knew of Islam and Turkey she learned in a Greek Orthodox monastery, for it pretty much included relatively exaggerated horror stories of Ottomans massacring Greeks in the name of God, and believed that Islam (by some form of logic) was "pure evil". Surely I didn't try and provoke her, I only tried to spark a conversation about how Muslims and Christians have peacefully coexisted in many areas of the world for a millenia, but she would have none of it. I bring this experience up because I found it strikingly odd that through six days in Greece the most stereotypical Greek opinion of Turks came from an American citizen. It just makes one wonder how much we Americans drive world philosophy.
The Acropolis is a heavily fortified medieval castle that surrounds Hellenistic ruins. Inside the bastions is a Temple to Athena and a Byzantine Church. While not very extenisive, the site is going through a 3.4 million euro renovation process and many of the old buildings are being rebuilt. Also outside the town are a couple of great hikes. We did one of these in an afternoon which took us out onthe otherside of the bay and saw an old broken down windmill and two ancient funerary monuments.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of these sites in Greece is that many of them (the Acropolis of Rhodes, funeraries in Lindos) are completley free and open to the public without much supervision. Most of these such places are not active archeological sites, which contributes to this fact, but it is quite awesome to see much of this stuff without so much as a signpost to tell you what something is.
The crazy people at facebook have messed with their picture format again, I will post pictures as soon as I figure it out.
'Till next time.
Here's the rundown of my eight day trip south to the Turkish port of Marmaris and the Greek Island of Rhodes:
Day 1-3 Marmaris:
We left Ankara mid morning on Friday the 20th and arrived in Marmaris about 11 hours later. Marmaris was founded in the 16th century but has been little more than a fishing village until recently. It was nice to take a day bus for a change, we got to see some more of the countryside, but ultimately these things are really tiring. In 1522 Suleyman the Magnificent visited the town on his way to capturing Rhodes from the Knights of St. John, and he was heard to mumble "mimar as" which in Turkish means "hang the architect" and thus modern Marmaris was born. At first impression Marmaris is a very odd place. It is bursting with British and German tourists and hundreds of businesses that cater overhwelmingly in that direction. There are sandy beaches, and boat trips much like Kaş or any other Aegean/Mediterranean resort, but nowhere else do you get so inundated with neon signs advertizing "British Food" or "Chinese Food" or "Mexican Food". Indeed one restaurant a block from my hotel, standing on a corner, used its three façades to advertise itself as specialists in each of these cuisines. You really had to search through the dozens of touristy eateries for a good döner or pide. The water on the beach was kind of dirty and on a whole the first impression of the city was dissapointing. However, you do realize something about the country by visiting a place like this. This is the kind of thing that drives the Turkish economy. Pandering to Brits and other Europeans as much cheaper alternative to the Riviera or Italian coast, Marmaris never ceases to pull in a lot of money. Certainly this place was the closest I've seen here to a Jersey Shore type town. Nonetheless we had a relatively enjoyable time because it was out of season, meaning less crowds and cheaper prices.
Day 3-6 Rodos Town:
Early Monday morning we left on a large hydrofoil for Rhodes. The trip was about an hour plus the time waiting in customs. The lines were a bit long because the put all non-EU passports in the same line, shuffling me and my crew in with the Turks. Rodos town sits on the very northern tip of the island and is the largest town and governing center for the island. The makeup of the town is equal parts Medieval fortress, Hellenistic ruin, Ottoman outpost and beach resort. As soon as you step through the gates Europe hits you right in the face. The modern town is full of fancy outlets for Lacoste and Diesel with all sorts of high end cafes and gyro stands and crepe shops. Eating here consisted of pork, pork and more pork (being in a muslim country for two plus months, this is one of the things you start to miss). Aside from pork gyros, bacon, and pork chops, we got to sample moussakka. Moussakka is an interesting dish, a layered potato square with eggplant, onion, minced meat and spices all baked and served piping hot. It is very much a potato lasagna. The other European aspect that hits you is English. While in Turkey, English only gets you so far, not knowing any Turkish won't get you anywhere in the back country and not much farther outside of Istanbul and the embassy districts. In Greece, nearly everyone knows at least some English, from the restaraunteurs to the beach peddlers, all the road signs are in two languages, and even many advertisements don't even sport the Greek script.
The main attraction of the town is the Medieval, walled city. Inside resides three Ottoman mosques which are almost all under renovation and not in use, the Palace of the Grand Masters, where the head of the Knights of St. John resided, an Ottoman era clocktower and library, and hundreds of small shops and restaurants selling everything from medieval weaponry to novelty artwork. The sites are all pretty neat to see, the most impressive being the Palace. Inside is a museum that boasts a rather large collection of Byzantine floor mosaics, pottery, and sculpture. The site is also of some interest because for a few years Cem Sultan, brother of Sultan Beyazit II was help prisoner here before he was transferred to the Vatican. He was the first member of the line of Osman to be imprisoned outside of the country and the power politics of the time that swirled around him are quite interesting.
Outside the walls right by the port are two columns with sculptures of a deer on the capital of each. This is the site where the Colossus of Rhodes stood in ancient times, though no remnants remain of this former wonder of the world. A twenty minute walk northwest of the old town is the Ancient Acropolis. This Acropolis has three main features, a stadium, odeon (small theatre) and the remnants of a Temple to Athena. The Odeon is incredibly well preserved and probably sat a few hundred people. The stadium is on a much smaller scale than the one we saw in Aphrodisias, but does have many differences. The stadium in Aphrodisias certainly hosted more "Gladiator" type games with lions and chariot races. This stadium, as some of the remains built into the group highlight, was more of the "Olympic" type which certainly emphasized throwing events and running (see pictures). The Temple is mostly in ruins and rubble, but one tetrapylon column set still remains.
Days 6-8 Lindos:
On Thursday morning we hopped on a bus and travelled down the south east coast about an hour to the town of Lindos. Lindos is an astonsihingly beautiful town built around an acropolis that juts out into the sea and accompanies a calm inlet with a sandy beach. Staying in the town we were able to lodge ourselves in a small villa owned by this older man and his sister for only 35 Euro a night (typical in season price is 90 Euro!). All the buildings are one or two stories and whitewashed. No cars or buses are allowed down the towns narrow streets, so all transport is either foot, donkey or mo-ped. The beach there was fantastic and very relaxing. While tourists were still abound, you definitely got more of a feel of the typical Greek village here. I would certainly make this town an equivalent to the Turkish Safranbolu. One thing that is quite prevalent here is the religion. As much as Safranbolu was tight knit and Muslim, this town was tight-knit and Greek Orthodox Christian. The second morning we were led around the town by the female hermit of a nearby monastary and shown a few of the towns old churches. Certainly this was one of the more interesting tour guides I've had on the trip. This woman is an American born sister at the St. Michael the Archangel Monastery in central Rhodes. She came there a decade and a half ago after being on faculty in the science department at Harvard. She is an expert iconographer and theologian (but as I'll explain, not a historian) and was certainly enamored of her way of life, her faith and this town. The churches are all very very small, though they date as old as a thousand years old. Most of them are dedicted to one of three saints, George, Dimitri or Minas. Our guide aptly explained to us the adoration the people of the town had to these particular saints, and mentioned that if your looking for a good party, show up on their feast days (free souvlaki and ouzo for everybody!). Now I trusted this woman insofar as her training in iconography, it was certainly enlightening, but I did bristle a bit of her mention of Turks and Muslims. Clearly, all this woman knew of Islam and Turkey she learned in a Greek Orthodox monastery, for it pretty much included relatively exaggerated horror stories of Ottomans massacring Greeks in the name of God, and believed that Islam (by some form of logic) was "pure evil". Surely I didn't try and provoke her, I only tried to spark a conversation about how Muslims and Christians have peacefully coexisted in many areas of the world for a millenia, but she would have none of it. I bring this experience up because I found it strikingly odd that through six days in Greece the most stereotypical Greek opinion of Turks came from an American citizen. It just makes one wonder how much we Americans drive world philosophy.
The Acropolis is a heavily fortified medieval castle that surrounds Hellenistic ruins. Inside the bastions is a Temple to Athena and a Byzantine Church. While not very extenisive, the site is going through a 3.4 million euro renovation process and many of the old buildings are being rebuilt. Also outside the town are a couple of great hikes. We did one of these in an afternoon which took us out onthe otherside of the bay and saw an old broken down windmill and two ancient funerary monuments.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of these sites in Greece is that many of them (the Acropolis of Rhodes, funeraries in Lindos) are completley free and open to the public without much supervision. Most of these such places are not active archeological sites, which contributes to this fact, but it is quite awesome to see much of this stuff without so much as a signpost to tell you what something is.
The crazy people at facebook have messed with their picture format again, I will post pictures as soon as I figure it out.
'Till next time.
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Actually, and we talked about this, she's a hardcore democrat and recently filled out her absentee ballot entirely democrat. Goes to tell you something about "Massachussettes liberals" eh?
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