Tue 27.Nov.2012
Rhodes, Greece
Gone are the days we stopped to decide
Where we should go; we just ride."
- R. Hunter
Without the distraction of Thanksgiving, Greece gets going on Christmas
in mid-November.
Down by the harbor, these decorations have been up for
a couple of weeks.
The view from breakfast, standing up anyway, and while the weather lasts.
The crenellated roof lines of the Grandmaster's Palace look further away in
person than in this zoomed photo, and they vanish entirely when I sit
down, leaving only the Greek flag visible atop the square tower.
I have been emphasizing fruits and vegetables at the Thursday market, because
they make colorful pictures. There are inedibles there too though, like this
section of clothing.
What did this plane tree ever do to the city authorities? Guilty of
being large and alive, I suppose, something of that order. It was
mutilated like this this week. Worse yet, I just noticed this evening
that the red-flowered bushes next door, and the morning glory outside my
side window are gone. Vanished without a trace. Whatever is going on leaves
a bleak after-effect.
This big leaf is as close as I expect to come to the dazzling nature
photos that my friend Em has been posting lately on facebook.
Doesn't the Red Gate look breathtakingly medieval from down here
in the moat?
Cars actually drive across that bridge and through that portal. So do motos,
which keep a pedestrian nimble on his toes.
I like to think of Claude Monet as my number one artistic muse. So why do
I see a touch of Maxfield Parrish in this picture? Do I really want to know?
It shows a popular dog-walking area of the moat, under the D'Amboise Gate, with
the
St. George Bastion in the background haze, protruding massively from
the main wall of the city.