Rhodes
Rhodes is the name of a Greek city on a large Greek island with the same name. The 4th largest Greek Island, and full of historical significance, recent and ancient. It is also the location of another one of the real or hypothetical wonders of the ancient world, the Colossus of Rhodes. We were given quite a talk about this from our guide. The Colossus was a statue of the god Apollo that stood over the entrance to the old seaport.
I am standing on one side of the entrance to the port and the pillar with the deer on top is on the other side. Supposedly, the statue had one foot on my side, one on the other, and ships sailed under Apollo as they entered the port. The Colossus was made entirely from bronze and stood almost as tall as the statue of liberty. It, as the story goes, stood for around 10 years until toppled by an earthquake. It fell into the harbor but remained untouched by the locals who feared insulting the gods. It remained in the harbor for around 700 years until the Turks captured the city and removed the remains to modern day Syria for recycling. Apollo has no power over the Turks. The removal task, we were also told, took several ships and eventually 900 camels.
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There are other stories about where the Colossus stood and what it was made from. But the account above was from our guide, who was born in Canada, so it must be true.
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The big attraction in town is the old city, surrounded by stone walls. This was definitely the biggest enclosed city we have seen so far. The video below is a fast scan of one side.
Entry to the city is over two moats. The first one is open to the public for events and relaxation.
The large balls in the moat were actually used in catapults during the ancient wars. Quite a large moat. This one was permanently dry. Not all moats held water.
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Inside the walls is the ancient city, still inhabited. Inside are shops, shops, more shops, and also a museum. What else?
One of the highlights is this actual statue of Aphrodite, preserved almost intact from (I seem to remember) 100 BCE.
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Rhodes was also the site of one of the most modern hospitals of the area, along with a surgery.
The picture above is where the patient's beds were. The large structures on next to the walls were headstones for graves. Not the most encouraging decorations for a hospital recovery room. I think they were moved in after the hospital stopped operating as such, but having them in the same area is almost as bad.
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Lots more pictures were taken. No more are included. Except for one I saw walking around the town. Like in every other city in Greece, there are many, many unhoused cats. All vaccinated, as appears to be the norm. In this location, someone had set up a cat hotel. Cute. A tin on the left side of the picture solicited donations for cat food.
