Tue 16.Nov.2010
Rhodes, Greece
Off Season
![default title default alt text](pix/2010/pb157789.jpg)
The trickle of cruise ships dried up for most of last last week, and
much of the old town was more like ghost town as a result. One of the
very few cafes down on Shakedown Street that tried to buck the odds
provided me a nice picture, but got precious few customers to show for
their efforts.
![default title default alt text](pix/2010/pb157798.jpg)
For the businesses with their own base of regulars, like the little
supermarket and the ice cream cafe, life goes on. My own pub / home
base sails right along. Their profit margin may take a hit, but their
core clientele are still here.
Some trees, or perhaps big flower bushes have run loose in an abandoned lot on a bluff near my home base on Dorieos Square.
From up here you can see the ruined mosque across the square from my
room, which is probably behind that white wall in front of the former
minaret.
![default title default alt text](pix/2010/pb157804.jpg)
Suleiman's mosque, inactive but beautifully maintained. Suleiman's
minaret is several shades of off-white, and has two balconies. This
distinguishes it from Ibrahim Pasha's pure snow white minaret with its
single balcony.
I've already posted lots of pictures of Ibrahim Pasha's lovely minaret,
so today we will just settle for Suleiman's. Minarets aside, his is the
considerably more picturesque mosque.
![default title default alt text](pix/2010/pb157818.jpg)
I don't know how many colors hibiscus come in. The ones here in Rhodes are either red, or white with pink. My photos have been biased toward the red ones, so here is a white one.
Ahh.. Teach Your Children wafts out of the pub sound system. Those beautiful sliding pedal steel lines from Jerry G.
![default title default alt text](pix/2010/pb157820.jpg)
About ten cats were gathered outside another abandoned mosque, this one next to the still-active municipal hamam.
Municipal what?!? That's right; Rodhos has an honest to goodness
functioning municipal turkish bath house! S'what it says on the outside
anyway. I should go in and check it out some day. I'd have no idea what
to do - never been in a hamam before, even in Turkey.
![Amboise Gate Archway with bridge over moat](pix/2010/pb157826.jpg)
Out to one of the back gates of the old city, and down to...
![default title default alt text](pix/2010/pb157831.jpg)
Mandraki harbor. This was the ancient harbor whose entrance the
Colossus of Rhodes watched over. Today it is a yacht harbor, separated
by a breakwater from Kolonna, the commercial harbor.
![default title default alt text](pix/2010/pb157838.jpg)
Here is the breakwater in question, with some err... silos? windmills?
guard towers? photo ops? Picturesue towers anyway at the end.
![default title default alt text](pix/2010/pb157842.jpg)
And so... as the sun... hmm, I've ended this way before, haven't I?
See y'all later. As the Ancient Greeks used to say, Don't let your meat loaf!
Contents Copyright 2012 Jeff Bulf