Turkish Letters #13 -- -- Rhodes (Shiralee)

In Rhodes they really took the threat of invaders seriously. One would call them paranoid if history hadn't proved them so consistently right. Everyone DID want Rhodes -- and when they got it, they were determined to keep it. Now this is not a surprise. It's handily situated off the coast of Turkey, just close enough to tax or strangle coastal shipping. It provides a great little base for raiding the mainland. And it's gorgeous. Gorgeous weather. Gorgeous beaches and stunning views over the bluest of blue seas. Gorgeous architecture. Gorgeous people. Not for nothing was it dedicated to Helios, the sun god, and then later called Rodos, island of roses.

In a word, Rhodes is deeply desirable.

In response, the Rhodians have developed a variety of cunning stratagems to thwart invaders. Since times immemorial they have built whacking great walls and then scampered behind them at the first hint of a troublesome fleet on the horizon. Each time the existing walls have proved insufficient, the winners have learnt from their victory and built even bigger and even thicker new walls. This has meant that the place is now littered with archeological digs uncovering the remnants of previous walls. (Actually it is chocablock with archaeological sites of all kinds from ancient sewers to temples and palaces.)

The oldest walls are Hellenic. These seem to have lasted for a REALLY long time. Their success might have something to do with the ancient Hellenes' habit of catapulting ginormous stone balls at anyone who annoyed them. There are literally thousands of these balls, in a variety of sizes ranging from baseball to beachball, lying about the place. I presume that the ancient Hellenes wiled away their spare time handcrafting them. At the Archaeology museum we saw a pile that were part of a stockpile of several thousand that were found in a single cache. Archaeologists believe that some of them may have been athletics trophies. This conjures up the vision of the lucky winners graciously accepting them ("Gee this means a lot to me! I'll treasure it forever"), and then slipping them back onto the pile before heading home. Perhaps why they settled on laurel wreathes on the mainland. Alternately it suggests new and vastly superior uses for the dross of trophies that clutter the dens, bars and display cases of the world. We could just fire them at whoever is annoying us most at the time. That'd scare those Iranians into giving up their nuclear program.

Catapult balls as courtyard decoration at the Archaeology Museum

At some point the Hellenes lost the farm to the Romans. This gave them the opportunity to mix it up aesthetics-wise. Obviously after generations of chipping Archaic, Doric, Ionic and Corinthian pillers, sculptures and assorted doodads out of local stone as well imported marble, they were ready for a change and embraced the arch and a more luxurious standard of living. Mind you, those Hellenes were no stoics; they had state of the art sewerage systems, luxury imports from Egypt and a good line in gouging pilgrims to the various astonishing shrines and temples they had built on every prominent bit of real estate.

That is to say that tourism has always been a major money-spinner for the locals. I'm pretty sure that the famed Colossus was the equivalent of the Big Marino or the Big Pineapple and the 'Seven Wonders of the World' thing was an early scam to get more of the tourist buck.

Anyway, Romans morphed into Byzantines who built new walls. Actually the Byzantines were pretty crap builders -- they favoured double walls with a rubble-fill, which probably explains why they lost the island to the first bunch of Crusaders to pass by and had a constant pirate problem to boot.

The locals obviously didn't put too much faith in the walls either. They came up with their own cunning pirate-prevention plan.

Slippery paths.

Really.

They got an enormous quantity of smooth flattish oval stones and set them sideways into the ground. With an eye to the later tourist trade they made pretty patterns in front of high-profile buildings etc. by using black and white stones. Then, when the pirates showed up in their pouncy pirate shirts and pirate high-heels, they prayed for rain. This turned the paths into slippery sidewalks of death. The pirates would limp off with turned ankles, broken heels and crushed egos muttering under their breaths. The locals would roll about laughing. I imagine they still do as they watch tourists try to navigate them in their stilettos.

Crusaders, however, didn't wear high-heels on their armour. After they took Rhodes they built a really state of the art fortress in Rhodes town -- really high walls, a system of double moats, etc etc. -- and a network of other fortresses around the island. They built fast, but they must have built well. Rhodes Old Town is still enclosed by their walls, but now rather than keeping invaders out, the walls keep them in. They, and the medieval town they enclose, are the chief reason for its status as a world heritage site and the chief drawcard for the millions of tourists that visit every year. Inside the walls strict rules prevent insensitive development. Unfortunately this hasn't stopped every second building from being converted into either a souvenir stall or an 'authentic' Greek taverna.

The Ottoman influence persists...

Although conversion has a long history here too. It took the Ottomans ages to quell the Frankish threat posed by the Knights of St John, the Hospitelers and other crusader ratbags in residence. It wasn't until the mid-16th century that Süleyman managed to expel them. The Turks held on to the island until it was invaded by the Germans during the 2nd world war and then afterwards was annexed by Greece. (I'm more than a little hazy on these details because actually I just overheard a tour guide tell her group this as they were being trotted through the Palace of the Grand Master. So don't take it as gospel.#1)

Anyways, the Ottomans converted many of the plethora of churches into mosques. Put in some public fountains, bedestans, etc as was their wont. Gave the locals some new ideas for pottery by importing Iznik ceramics. And then did what everyone else does -- kicked back and enjoyed the weather, the food and the locals.

Which brings me to contemporary invader-repulsion strategies. JB and I were very surprised to find ourselves practically the only tourists on the whole island. Why, we wondered, didn't Europeans take advantage of the mild winter, off-season prices and lack of others of their ilk. As it turned out, it can only be because Rhodians spend their time telling all and sundry how disappointing/ugly/boring/cold it is on Rhodes in the winter. They are lying. They just want it all to themselves.

The Crusader fortress in Lindos. As well as featuring a very impressive and huge low relief carving of a Greek galley on the living rock wall, it was also the site of a temple to Athene which has been semi-archaeologised and some stunning views over both the town and the sea... more pics #6

Thery want to be able to wander through the labyrinthine arch-spangled and cat-haunted lanes and alleys of the Old Town#2 without stumbling over gormless tourists madly snapping pictures. More to the point they want to be able to ride their scooters very fast through them without committing mass fatalities. They want to be able to drive their cars very fast along the equally labyrinthine but much steeper mountain roads without incurring similar consequences. They want to be able to leave the doors of their honey -- coloured stone houses open without feeling like zoo animals. They want to be able to go to Seven Springs and have the forests (and the strange collection of peafowl, geese and ducks) to themselves. They want to be able to get a carpark and a coffee in Lindos. They want to be the only ones picking wild flowers in the ruins of clifftop castles. They don't want to share the view across half of Rhodes from a restored alpine hotel in Piges Illias.

They're just being selfish.

And no wonder -- Rhodes is stunningly beautiful without people.

Mind you, it IS closed. They do open the big things -- the archaeology museum #3, the palace #4, the decorative arts museum #5 (this is one of the worlds great WTFs) -- but everything else is closed for the interim. Hotels, pensiones, restaurants, cafes, churchs... EVERYTHING. Sometimes cultural edifices taunt eager cultural tourists by having signs that promise they'll open for, oh, five minutes between the hours of 13.00 and 13.05 but when you manage to get there between these times, they stay closed. And it doesn't matter how long you hang around in the hope that eventually someone will turn up let you into that ancient whatever -- it just isn't going to happen.

Around the corner from our pensione (Nassos Pension#7) is a classic cross-plan Byzantine Church of the Holy Trinity dating from the 11 th century. It has never been open despite the fact that we KNOW someone was going there regularly... peering through the keyhole we could see fresh flowers on the altar and candles burning. Ditto for the tiny 8 th century barrel-vaulted St Marina's just around the other corner.

The only time we actually found a church open in the old town, it was obviously for some local event. It was chockas with locals of all ages lighting candles, burning incense, muttering prayers and kissing pictures. We slipped in but very quickly felt like religious voyeurs. It was marvellous though -- and, as JB pointed out, the floor-to-apse frescos were the spitting images of those we'd seen in the cave chapels in Cappadokya. The sense of a living tradition being passed down unchanged through the centuries was overwhelming. This was confirmed by visits to roadside shrines around the island (which all seem to be open during daylight hours), and to a church in a cemetery in New Town. One shrine/church, deep in the countryside, was in the process of being painted with frescos, again identical to those we'd seen faded, burned or defaced in Cappadokya, but intensely coloured with fresh paint and augmented by ornate carved icon -- screens, gold chandeliers etc.

For a complete atheist, the intensity of Greeks' commitment to their religion is a little bewildering... not to mention troubling. They seem like such nice cheerfully pragmatic people otherwise. Television carries several channels all showing various, but identical, religious services on Sunday morning. These are strong on group and individual chanting (bearing not a small aesthetic resemblance to Muslim practises), bobbing and other physical actions, kissing and swinging of things. Actually rather attractive as TV wallpaper -- I wish they'd have G.O services on Australian tellie.

Many houses and public building have their own shrines, and roads seem to have a shrine every couple of kilometres. These range in size and elaboration from letter-box sized models of churches containing a candle, an iconic image or ten and some flowers, to garage-sized walk-in shrines with full fresco-ing and a plethora of more portable icons. Almost without exception, they were highly maintained with candles burning and relatively fresh flowers.

Which brings me to the cemeteries. I have never come across a culture that makes such a big deal out of death! The cemeteries are exceptional not just for having elaborate graves etc -- some with carved busts of the deceased, some with photographs in ceramics, etc, and all with a plethora of religious paraphernalia -- but also for the constancy with which they are tended. Lighted candles and lamps illuminating icons, photos and mantlepiece ornaments in little glass cases, flourishing plants and fresh flowers on many, vases, wreathes, posies and bunches of artificial flowers filling up every other space. This is obviously a tradition on Rhodes (and perhaps in the rest of Greece). But here this celebration of the deceased has been going on for millennia and is really no different from the grave finds that archaeologists have turned up all over the rest of the island. Just the details have changed.

#1 Oops I got that a bit wrong... from my hasty reading of a potted history earlier today, I now think that what actually happened was that the Romans lost it to Arabic pirates 640ish CE, the Byzantines got it back but lost it to Frankish pirates in the 13th century. It was wrested from them by the Genovese and the Venetians who sold it to the Knights of St John. Süleyman (16th century) eventually nabbed it for the Ottomans who held until after WWI when it was invaded by the Italians who subjected it to a brutal totalitarian regime. The Germans duked it out with the Italians in 1943ish, took it, stripped and then lost it to the Allies. They then presented it to Greece. Or something like that... I'm operating totally on memory here. And the originating website may well have been bollocks too.

#2 These lanes appear to have been designed as a back-up invader repulsion system -- they are so narrow and windy and uniformly pretty that the unwary stranger is lost instantly. At least in admiration...

Note the pirate-proof pebble paving on many of these lanes

#3 The Archaeology Museum is fantastic. It is housed in what was the hospital and looks like a crusader caravanserai. It is full of all the Ancient Greek, Roman, Byzantine and medieval sculptural bits and bobs as you'd expect -- but has extra added Greek ladies, gossiping and using Roman sculptures as occasional tables. Has a fabulous collection of Hellenic vases, jars and amphorae, as well as piles of other stuff found in various necropolises, temples and other middens. And apparently doesn't appear on most tour itineraries so is calmish even in summer.

#4 The Palace of the Grand Master -- aka Palace of the Knights of St John. Looking like a picture book illustration or a freshly rendered 3d example of an meta-castle, the complex is unfortunately short on on-board information about itself. I assume it was the Crusaders' HQ. On the other hand it had a fantastic exhibition of the history of Rhodes told through archaeological finds (that unfortunately visitors are not allowed to photograph) as well as a series of rooms containing what few bits of furniture etc were left by the Germans and some Hellenic and Byzantine mosaics, many of which seem to have been looted from nearby Cos. The first time we visited the Palace we had the joy of a compulsory guided tour of these rooms -- the guide raced us through and obviously wanted to give me a good slapping for wanting to stop and take pics. We were the only visitors there and she, and the rest of the invigilators, obviously just wanted us to get the hell out so they could go home. The next time was a Sunday so it was free. Unfortunately it was also packed with cruise liner passengers being raced through it by their own guides. We decided to look in reverse order so were constantly breasting dull-eyed mouth-breathers like salmon struggling upstream. But we did have time to find all the fantastic things -- windows paned in alabaster, chests carved with hippogriffs, pews with what might have been scurrilous portraits of their occupants, etc etc etc.

#5 Actually a room. Apparently based on somebody's personal collection and arranged with the 'major intention (is) to provide a bright attractive display', the museum is long on nationalism and very short on information. It does have some very cute painted boards and a couple of nice examples of late Iznik crockery. Also an astonishingly strange mannequin. BTW if you happen to be in Rhodes you can well afford to miss both this and the Byzantine Museum which is just a few fresco fragments shown in a rather impressive but very restored church.

A painted board... or at least one end of it.

#6 Lindos is touted as the most 'authentic' greek village on the town but I suspect that, despite the town ordinances that have prevented aesthetically inappropriate development, it is now just a tourist creation. It IS really pretty when no one's there -- but I've heard that during summer it is so crowded that you have to queue up just to navigate its narrow streets.

From the Acropolis -- Lindos's main archaeological drawcard

#7 We met Nassos at the docks a nanosecond after giving up on the hope that someone from a pensione would be there looking for customers. We were sadly dragging our bag along the cobblestones towards the town when he pulled up in his battered van full of bags of concrete and dust. We gladly jumped in and he whisked us to one of his pensiones in the Old Town. He and a bunch of on-site Albanians were installing showers in the rooms -- which explained the state of the van. Not to mention the pensione. The garden, courtyard and roof garden were piled high with rubbish, old furniture, crates of empty beer bottles, bbq equipments, wood, concrete etc etc. inside the pensione looked like a textbook illustration of what happens if you leave a bunch of boys to their own devices. Every surface was covered in crap and dirty dishes.Nassos however was charming. He made us coffee, showed us what was what on a map of Rhodes, gave us linen so we could make our bed, and showed us to his 'best room' -- a room with a splendid new shower in a splendidly grubby bathroom. However it included a little sink and a refrigerator, a television and a door that opened up on a view of the gorgeously wild garden next door. unfortunately it also let water in when it rained. A little matter he omitte to tell us. We found out the hard way, waking to a flooded room and soaking clothing after an overnight thunderstorm.