Aegean Odyssey

Hygeia, feeding snake

Mosaic of Triton, half-man, half-sea creature, made with pebbles

Sea sponges from the Aegean

On the deck of the Prevelis, between Rhodes and Crete (14 hr ferry ride)

Our last day in Rhodes, we spent the morning in the Archeological Museum and the Palace of the Grand Masters in the Old Town of Rhodes looking at Greek, Roman, The Knights of St. John (multi cultural group of Christian military/monastic order of Crusaders) and Italian artifacts.
In the photo of the statue of Hygeia, note that she has a snake wrapped around her right arm. It is drinking from a little plate she holds with her left. Hygeia is the daughter of Asklepios the healer (remember an Asklepion was the original hospital/spa/therapy institution in ancient Greece). This statue is from 2nd Century AD.

 The photo of the mosaic shows a Triton, half-man, half-sea creature. The mosaic is made with black, gray and white pebbles (not colored glass or clay tiles). It was found underneath a high school playground and is stylistically very dynamic.
****
At the end of the day, we allowed ourselves plenty of time to walk from our hotel to the port to catch our ferry to Crete. We left at 5:30 pm;  the boat was due to depart at 7 pm. We figured we would arrive 45 minutes early. The travel agent said there was no way of knowing which of the two ports the boat would leave from until the day of, but not to worry because the two ports were "right next to each other." 
So, We dragged our suitcases over cobble stoned streets, marble sidewalks and gravel driveways and at 6 pm discovered our ferry was NOT in the port that was closer to town. The security guard pointed to the left and said "It's right over there." Twenty minutes into this new leg of walking to the next port, one of the wheels on one of our wheelie bags broke off!! It is a major blow to us old foggies who don't want to have to carry our bags the way we used to.

At 6:30 pm we made it to the only large ship in the "Commercial Harbor." But since my Greek is in its infancy, I had read the name wrong, and it wasn't our ship. In fact, the sailors told us, "Oh, Prevelis, that ship, no go. Maybe tomorrow...." I pulled out our tickets which they read with amazement and waved us on to another dock. We dragged/carried our injured luggage another half mile to a completely empty water front with a very chilly breeze coming off the water. In the distance I could see a figure sitting in a little wooden kiosk with the name of the shipping company on it: ANEK (I could read that).  Philip stayed w/the luggage and I ran over as fast as I could imagining we were about to miss our boat (it was 6:50pm). An overweight, bleached blond, terrifically bored looking  ANEK employee glanced at the tickets and said casually, "Ship late. Coming 9:30." We looked around us - no waiting room, no benches, no cafe, just a windy and dusty parking lot . I asked if she would keep our luggage while we found a place out of the wind. She reluctantly agreed, so we walked back out of the harbor area to a commercial part of Rhodes with car parts, car garages, and no restaurants or cafes. Luckily, we found an automated video arcade with vending machines, and metal seats. We could sit there without the obligation to buy a coffee to have an excuse to sit there.
A few other ANEK ferry boat customers were already there. We got to know a lovely young Chinese-Brazilian couple on their honeymoon and two girls from UVA who  just finished a semester studying art in Florence. Our motley crew made its way back to the port 3 hrs later, but the 6 of us had to huddle behind the ticket kiosk in the dark to get out of the wind for another hour and a half.
When we finally got onto the ship around10:45 pm, we were taken to our cozy cabin with bunk beds and private bathroom. So the rest of the trip felt luxurious, much more pleasant than the sleeper car on an Indian train!! Here in Crete, the Greek response to our comments about the boat being so late has been, "Only 4 hrs?" Now we know to call before our next ferry ride!

My goal in Crete is to see all the amazing sites I learned about in Art History - I am so excited to see Knossos - the palace of King Minos!! It was Schliemann (German-American business man at turn of 19 C) who identified the location of the palace here. He was the first person in thousands of years to take the stories LITERALLY and piece together where they would have taken place!! He found Troy, but in Crete he did not receive permission to dig. Many years later a British archeologist with training bought property on Crete in the location Schliemann had identified and thereby had the right to dig. Today we looked at artefacts from 5000 years ago!! The cult images of priestess holding snakes predate the Greek.