Mediterranean Time Travel

Time travel is easy for a MedTrekker.

The Idiot left behind Crete’s intriguing world of Zeus’ caves, Minoan culture, gorge-ous countryside, an Academy Award winner and a hip archeologist by taking a ferry to Rhodes, the largest island in the Dodecanese archipelago in the eastern Aegean Sea.

He was instantaneously transplanted to the “island of roses,” which was home to the Mediterranean’s primary maritime power over 2,300 years ago and a bastion of Christianity from 1306 to 1522. That was the time that the Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem ran the place and constructed an array of enticing and enchanting Provencal Gothic style citadels, fortresses and churches.

Almost everyone who lands here, including The Idiot, wonders if they didn’t time travel to Avignon, France, by mistake.

Sunrise on the Palace of the Grand Masters in Rhodes.

The gate of Saint Anthony in medieval Rhodes.

Naturally there are also more contemporary remnants of the Turks, Italians and Greeks who controlled Rhodes after the knights were ousted by Suleimaniye the Magnificient and his Turkish forces.

The Italians, who were in charge from 1911-43 and fastidiously restored the fascinating medieval city, left behind nifty structures like this permanent in-the-sea diving platform. The Idiot has MedTrekked 8,376 kilometers around the Mediterranean Sea and this is a one-of-a-kind marvel.

Italian diving platform.

The Colossus, the gigantic 300 BC statue that once symbolized the island’s power, is no longer at the entrance of the Mandraki port, but there are some particularly colorful fellow MedTrekkers in Rhodes to compensate for its absence.

The Idiot had a standoff with one of them at the top of Mount Filerimos (http://bit.ly/kjgztR) on a path that led to the Monastery of Our Lady and the ancient temple of Athena Polias.

A peacock confronts The Idiot.

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