Sun 08.Jan.2012
Rhodes, Greece
After a fairly rainy turn of the year, here we are in 2012.
Not that the city looks that all different. It is still here though,
so let's get out and have a look around.
Suleiman's minaret isn't going anywhere, and his popular,
picturesque mosque is too well-maintained to collapse as poor
Recep Pasha's is slowly doing.
It is also on the way to and from places that I often go - a
Frequently Taken Picture if ever there were one.
Cats still hang out on these steps. Sometimes seven or eight at a
time. On this sunny afternoon, most were wandering elsewhere.
When I arrived last October, you could not even see the actual
branches on this tree. You just had to know that something must be
holding up all those leaves. Off-season is the supporting
cast's time in the limelight.
Look through the arch here. See that pale placard? That is an
actual you-are-here, one of many scattered around the old
city, and the moat as well.
They all have pretty much the same map at the same scale. The maps
in the moat identify many of the towers, bastions, etc. in
the city fortifications. The maps inside the wall have more on
historic buildings, older city walls, and such. All of them use a
color code to explain whether the various walls, ruins, and old
structures are ancient, Roman / Byzantine, crusader, or Ottoman.
That is it for now. Still here, seriously into the off-season.
Temperatures tend to be about 8°F lower than in the Bay Area.
I am not really a short-timer yet, but I have already made my
flight reservations home for late February. (What? Already?!?
That is how reservations work if you want good flights and
prices.)
Contents Copyright 2012 Jeff Bulf