Thursday, June 02, 2005
Naxos, Cyclades Islands, Creece
Sitting in an internet Cafe in Naxos, home of Mount Zas, birth place of Zeus and nearly nextdoor to the island of Delos, birthplace of Apollo. But they are all living over in Olympia now.
Athens was quite intense in fact. We spent the a good week there but more than half our time was left sorting out where the embassies and then the consulates of the Georgian, Armenian, and Russians' were. We had planned Athens as a base for sorting out all of this stuff. We rang the Turkish Embassy as well, although only Irish people need a visa to go to Turkey, (Not quite true), but Solene doesnt need one. So, I could buy one in Athens> Yes no problem, How much?>60 euro, >How much is it if I buyt it at the border?> 10 euro. Hmmmm......
we still have to sus out exactly the issues of travelling North to South in Cyprus might be...
Monday was spent locating the emabssies, Tuesday got us to the Russian Consulate where a lady at the gate helped interpret our requirements to the secretary the other side, whos face dropped on seeing the passports - Irski? Fanski? he said disbelievingly. He let us in then, but even at that stage I just thought he was letting us through on novelty value alone! It was the first experience of really where English just is not going to work....
Una reddington is a hero and champion of organisation, if it weren't for you Una (and Eoin) we'd still be outside the embassy in Athens. It went swimmingly. We just dropped off the passports and we were to collect them next day. we went and picked up the forms at the Georgian and Armenian embassies after.
It took more or less a day to sort out each of the visas. Each trip to the Consulates an intriguing taster of the countries. The Lebanese assistant (of Armenian descent apparently) at the Armenian Consulate was a charmer. She had worked with an Irish guy in Beirut years ago, and thought he was magic. Although her boss was also Irish there, and she had less to say about him... The Armenian Consul was also sound. It was a dream of his to work/live in Paris. He only ever stopped off there, CDG for a couple of hours. I couldn't help thinking that the last King of Armenia in the 13th century had died in Paris after travelling through all the courts of Europe looking for some help and warning against the Mongols who were arriving in Armenia and present day Georgia at the time. He got no help and Armenia, and most of the Cacausus were over run by the Mongols who subsequently looted and plundered as far as Hungary and to the Outskirts of Vienna. It was only the death of their Khan that stopped their advance.
We met Anna outside of the Armenian consulate on the stairwell (the Armenian foyer was even smaller than the Georgian's) , while we were filling in our forms. When she learned we were going to Georgia, she insisited on giving us her Georgian Mobile number, despite the fact she didnt speak a word of English, and we didnt speak a work of Georgian or Greek...
Georgia is a fairily straight up place by the look of it. In the foyer the size of a small bedroom 10 or so people stood, waited and shuttled variously between the three offices off of it, one being the Consuls. If the door is closed, you should open it to make sure there is a good reason for it being closed. So at the risk of not getting anywhere we started opening doors randomly, and it worked in the end, the Consul inviting us in, having a chat in English, and asking why were we going to Georgia, Sol said Tourism, I said Wine. His eyes lit up and he spent the next five minutes rummaging through his office for a bottle of wine (or maybe it was a book on Georgian Wine, I was hoping for the former though) but didn't manage to find it. Asked what we did for a living he was enthusiastic on hearing we were architects, saying that Georgia was a great place for architecture. For a millisecong I though he meant that there was lots of work for architects, but he merely meant the 'already built' type of architecture....
He took our passports told us to go to the bank and pay direct to the Consulate account, for which we had to pay the bastard bank 1.50 for the pleasure, nipped back and waited another 30 minutes in the lobby with 10 people waiting at the consuls door. If you are told to close the door, you can close it and then let it open again just slightly enough so that you can see in, and make sure that he is doing work. this is at least what I learnt from a young Georgian bloke standing head of the que, waiting for a new passport....
The rest of Athens was all classical Ruins and Museum epics. All the national museums close at three in the afternoon in the low season which is a pain.
One of my favourite was the Benaki museums, which is a private musuem with a collection of objects from prehistory and neolithic times to pretty much the present day Greece. The objective of the museum is to track the changes and developments of Greek/Hellenisitc art and craft since, well, the start. It is an amazing collection of stuff. My particular favourite Egyptian woven fabrics and paintings(Lincuil in french, used for covering the body after death) from 500 AD. They are apparently quite common, but I hadn't seen a piece of fabric surviving so perfectly (colours intact) for so long. It was pointed out that the Egyptian burial traditions, the Greek development of Painting and the Roman mastery of Portrait were perfectly melded her. I dont know how 'true' that is, but they are remarkable things anyway.
But for me, the museum didn't answer the big question. If you look at (and they have in the museum) coins spanning the time from say Constantine - the first Holy Roman Emperor (306-337 AD) up until the Byzantine Emperors (around the tenth century AD), the heads on the coins go gradually from perfect portraits to something looking like a couple of courgettes and a tomato with assorted grapes. How can you loose that skill so easily? Generation by generation the coins deteriorate. Right up until the Renaissance, when the best complement an artist could get was 'as good as the ancients'. It's no surprise that the some Roman Sewers in Rome are still functioning perfectly today. And all this from a tribe that didnt even have coins in the early days. (Not until relatively quite late - after the conquest of the Etruscans and Sicilians (Magna Greacia) -did the Romans start minting coins apparently.
The museums costumes from the islands and general collection of fabrics are incredible. I would never hanve thought that they would interesting, but, I now know all about the Dodecanese Raised Stitch.....
Not surprisingly after 6 hours in a place like that we were museumed out. So we just chilled out and wandered around Athens, the Kolonaki and the Plaka and the like for the next day or so, before heading south to Syros and the islands.
Greece, it must be said, has gotten to be a totally trendy place. Even Lamia had classy cafe joints with Sofas on the street terraces, and prices to reflect it too. But the food is still great and cheap.
we have to go now, the Ferry leaves in an hour. I will add some more soon.....
Athens was quite intense in fact. We spent the a good week there but more than half our time was left sorting out where the embassies and then the consulates of the Georgian, Armenian, and Russians' were. We had planned Athens as a base for sorting out all of this stuff. We rang the Turkish Embassy as well, although only Irish people need a visa to go to Turkey, (Not quite true), but Solene doesnt need one. So, I could buy one in Athens> Yes no problem, How much?>60 euro, >How much is it if I buyt it at the border?> 10 euro. Hmmmm......
we still have to sus out exactly the issues of travelling North to South in Cyprus might be...
Monday was spent locating the emabssies, Tuesday got us to the Russian Consulate where a lady at the gate helped interpret our requirements to the secretary the other side, whos face dropped on seeing the passports - Irski? Fanski? he said disbelievingly. He let us in then, but even at that stage I just thought he was letting us through on novelty value alone! It was the first experience of really where English just is not going to work....
Una reddington is a hero and champion of organisation, if it weren't for you Una (and Eoin) we'd still be outside the embassy in Athens. It went swimmingly. We just dropped off the passports and we were to collect them next day. we went and picked up the forms at the Georgian and Armenian embassies after.
It took more or less a day to sort out each of the visas. Each trip to the Consulates an intriguing taster of the countries. The Lebanese assistant (of Armenian descent apparently) at the Armenian Consulate was a charmer. She had worked with an Irish guy in Beirut years ago, and thought he was magic. Although her boss was also Irish there, and she had less to say about him... The Armenian Consul was also sound. It was a dream of his to work/live in Paris. He only ever stopped off there, CDG for a couple of hours. I couldn't help thinking that the last King of Armenia in the 13th century had died in Paris after travelling through all the courts of Europe looking for some help and warning against the Mongols who were arriving in Armenia and present day Georgia at the time. He got no help and Armenia, and most of the Cacausus were over run by the Mongols who subsequently looted and plundered as far as Hungary and to the Outskirts of Vienna. It was only the death of their Khan that stopped their advance.
We met Anna outside of the Armenian consulate on the stairwell (the Armenian foyer was even smaller than the Georgian's) , while we were filling in our forms. When she learned we were going to Georgia, she insisited on giving us her Georgian Mobile number, despite the fact she didnt speak a word of English, and we didnt speak a work of Georgian or Greek...
Georgia is a fairily straight up place by the look of it. In the foyer the size of a small bedroom 10 or so people stood, waited and shuttled variously between the three offices off of it, one being the Consuls. If the door is closed, you should open it to make sure there is a good reason for it being closed. So at the risk of not getting anywhere we started opening doors randomly, and it worked in the end, the Consul inviting us in, having a chat in English, and asking why were we going to Georgia, Sol said Tourism, I said Wine. His eyes lit up and he spent the next five minutes rummaging through his office for a bottle of wine (or maybe it was a book on Georgian Wine, I was hoping for the former though) but didn't manage to find it. Asked what we did for a living he was enthusiastic on hearing we were architects, saying that Georgia was a great place for architecture. For a millisecong I though he meant that there was lots of work for architects, but he merely meant the 'already built' type of architecture....
He took our passports told us to go to the bank and pay direct to the Consulate account, for which we had to pay the bastard bank 1.50 for the pleasure, nipped back and waited another 30 minutes in the lobby with 10 people waiting at the consuls door. If you are told to close the door, you can close it and then let it open again just slightly enough so that you can see in, and make sure that he is doing work. this is at least what I learnt from a young Georgian bloke standing head of the que, waiting for a new passport....
The rest of Athens was all classical Ruins and Museum epics. All the national museums close at three in the afternoon in the low season which is a pain.
One of my favourite was the Benaki museums, which is a private musuem with a collection of objects from prehistory and neolithic times to pretty much the present day Greece. The objective of the museum is to track the changes and developments of Greek/Hellenisitc art and craft since, well, the start. It is an amazing collection of stuff. My particular favourite Egyptian woven fabrics and paintings(Lincuil in french, used for covering the body after death) from 500 AD. They are apparently quite common, but I hadn't seen a piece of fabric surviving so perfectly (colours intact) for so long. It was pointed out that the Egyptian burial traditions, the Greek development of Painting and the Roman mastery of Portrait were perfectly melded her. I dont know how 'true' that is, but they are remarkable things anyway.
But for me, the museum didn't answer the big question. If you look at (and they have in the museum) coins spanning the time from say Constantine - the first Holy Roman Emperor (306-337 AD) up until the Byzantine Emperors (around the tenth century AD), the heads on the coins go gradually from perfect portraits to something looking like a couple of courgettes and a tomato with assorted grapes. How can you loose that skill so easily? Generation by generation the coins deteriorate. Right up until the Renaissance, when the best complement an artist could get was 'as good as the ancients'. It's no surprise that the some Roman Sewers in Rome are still functioning perfectly today. And all this from a tribe that didnt even have coins in the early days. (Not until relatively quite late - after the conquest of the Etruscans and Sicilians (Magna Greacia) -did the Romans start minting coins apparently.
The museums costumes from the islands and general collection of fabrics are incredible. I would never hanve thought that they would interesting, but, I now know all about the Dodecanese Raised Stitch.....
Not surprisingly after 6 hours in a place like that we were museumed out. So we just chilled out and wandered around Athens, the Kolonaki and the Plaka and the like for the next day or so, before heading south to Syros and the islands.
Greece, it must be said, has gotten to be a totally trendy place. Even Lamia had classy cafe joints with Sofas on the street terraces, and prices to reflect it too. But the food is still great and cheap.
we have to go now, the Ferry leaves in an hour. I will add some more soon.....
// posted by Dub @ Thursday, June 02, 2005 
Comments:
<< Home
qzz0709
polo ralph lauren
adidas wings
barcelona jersey
air max 97
polo ralph lauren
air jordan shoes
jordan 32
mont blanc pens
kappa clothing
nba jerseys
Post a Comment
polo ralph lauren
adidas wings
barcelona jersey
air max 97
polo ralph lauren
air jordan shoes
jordan 32
mont blanc pens
kappa clothing
nba jerseys
<< Home
