Rhodes Holiday Report

[Sibling DavidH]

Now my head is almost back together, I'll present some observations from Rhodes.

Visitor numbers are well down, trade even more so; shopkeepers complain that people aren't spending their money like they used to.

In the last two years the number of Russians and other Eastern Europeans has escalated.  In the hotel I was more often than not unable to identify what language I was hearing, which was never so before.  Germans were very scarce this year.  Swato was right to warn me  - shopkeepers said there had been ugly incidents at the start of the season.  For the last 20 years the next language after English on all notices was German, now it's Russian everywhere on the fresh ones.



This was the only German flag I noticed - I suspect the café-owner hung it up to try and attract what Germans there were, but the place was not exactly crowded.  Most of the Greeks are firmly convinced that since the Euro, the Germans had set a trap to lure Greece into debt and take it over.  "They couldn't conquer Europe in two wars, so now they want to buy it," was a common theme.  There were a few swastika gaffiti here and there.

One morning a gigantic cruise-ship, Cunard's Queen Elizabeth, was in the harbour - I took this from far away to show how it dwarfs the whole place.



The passengers said they were due to visit Cairo, but the rioting was so violent that they came to Rhodes instead.  Scary.

I had a mild but definite feeling that all this European harmony cannot last much longer.

[Swatopluk]

That's not a German but a Belgian flag. The German one is black red gold horizontal while Belgium has black gold red vertical (as seen in your picture).
I guess the guy who hung it up did not know the difference.

[Sibling DavidH]

Damn, Swato, I ought to know that!  Well, in that case he was probably not thinking of Germans at all.

[Swatopluk]

Well, the Belgians did a marvelous job in transferring their bad history to Germany. Pre-WW1 all the world thought of cut off hands when Belgium was mentioned with Belgians doing the cutting. When WW1 started it became poor Belgians becoming victim of evil German hand cutters. Stroke of genius on part of the Belgian and British propagandists. As far as I know Germans behaved extremly bad in Belgium but I know of not a single case of punitive or even preemptive hand amputation (as opposed to summary execution of suspects, installing lethal electrified fences, blowing up buildings blocking the line of fire...).

Sorry, getting off-topic again.

I really guess that the Greek putting that flag up thought it was a German one. I assume a lot of Germans don't know the difference either.

[Sibling DavidH]

I was aware the flag was wrongly oriented, of course, but I didn't spot the order of the colours.  After all those years teaching the kids schwarz - rot - gold.    I wouldn't spot if there were many Belgians there; I'd only hear French or Dutch, so I can't guess the state of trade.

Last year, Opsa was talking about the Colossus.  He fell down in an earthquake about 200 BC, so I took a shot of the entrance to Mandraki harbour where he stood.  The modern pillars with deer on are suppose to mark where his feet were.



If that's accurate, he was a big beggar all right.

I was right about prices - they are higher now in Euros, on the whole, but the exchange-rate more than compensated.

[Griffin NoName]

Staggered by the size of the Queen Elizabeth - made me gasp.

Maybe the flag was hung up wrong way round?

[Swatopluk]

Just google Venice Cruise Ship and you'll get images like this


http://www.marsecreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Cruise-Rows.jpg

And that's not even the extreme.

As for the flag, orientation does not change the colour sequence. The Belgians have the golden strip in the center, Germany the red one.

[Sibling DavidH]

That thing was big, all right:



The red-topped tower in front was a windmill!  And all that massive achievement of human ingenuity was blocked because some religious nutters got angry about a silly video.

[Opsa]

Very upsetting, that. The worst thing is that the whack job director of that film was obviously trying to instigate a riot. I hate that he succeeded.

Nice photos, though. Looks like the weather was splendid.

[Sibling DavidH]

^ It was!  Here's a pretty one to prove the point:

[Opsa]

Gorgeous. Where was it taken?

[Sibling DavidH]

That's one of the harbour gates into Rhodes - I can't remember which saint that one's named after.

[Opsa]

I'm guessing it was Columbanus of Bobbio, patron saint of motorcycles.

[pieces o nine]

Saints Harley and Davidson, virgins and martyrs, no doubt...