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I had been in Greece no more than an hour and here I was already at a water-side café.
Greece and Turkey, September 1994
Dougburnett2003-11-22 11:11:32
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soul and it, of course, is intimately related to Irish music. (If you have doubt about Blue grass soul, listen to the Stanley Brothers Rank Stranger.)
Next day I rented a car ($44/day) for a two day tour of the island. A few miles south of Rhodes town is an entirely different world. It looks more like Greece to me - small hamlets are spread out along the coast. There is a lot of open land covered with olive trees. Inland the rugged hills are covered with refreshing green pine forests. The farther you go, the fewer the tourists, and tourist facilities, you see. I wanted to see the Crusader fortification at Monolithos near the south end of the island, so that's where I headed. It's down a dusty dirt road and then a stiff walk up. The site is grand - all in ruins without any attempt to rebuild it for it tourist value. I sat on one of the stone walls under the bright sun and enjoyed the view of the hills and sea. After, I visited a few more ruins in the area and stopped at a road side café for lunch. It overlooked a lovely coral color Orthodox Church whose walls were covered with brilliant Bougainvillea.
After lunch, I started looking for a hotel at this end of the island. I wanted to avoid the drive back and sample the rural accommodations - this turned out to be a bad idea. As I was soon to find out, rooms outside the tourist centers are few and far between. In the end I found a hotel (Asterias $18) on the beach almost back in Rhodes town. After diner, I was sitting at the hotels outside bar writing in my journal. I noticed that I was being assaulted by mosquitoes - a problem I don't usually associate with bone dry Greece. "Yes, this is an especially bad year," the waiter admitted. Well, my room had neither screen nor air conditioning and it was way too warm to keep it closed up. So I drove back into Rhodes town - remember, it wasn't far - and bought some mosquito coils. With four of them burning,
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See photographs from:
Turkey Gallery
,
Greece Gallery
