Last day in Greece!

We are so close to Turkey that we can see it, but it will cost us almost $300 just to get in due to the high cost of the ferry tickets ($50 each) and the expensive $100 each for a visa sticker. Ouch- that really hurts budget travelers like us. But we have heard about how wonderful the country is, so we still have our hopes high.

We are in Rhodes right now. I think this is our favorite Greek island. The entire city is surrounded by huge walls built in the 1400's to keep the invading Turks out. The city of Rhodes has a much longer history, however. It stretches far back into the 7th century B.C. where a thriving port kept the citizens busy with trade. In the 200's B.C. a huge bronze sculpture of the sun god Helios was constructed over the harbor entrance. It was deemed one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world, although there is no evidence of it today. It supposedly stood 100 feet high and had one foot planted on each side of the harbor. Quite impossible to imagine, and many historians say flat out- it never was that big. But it was destoyed in an earthquake only 50 years later and melted down and sold for scrap. No one will ever know the truth!

We had fun on Crete, it it a beautiful mountainous island with many secluded beaches. It was too cold to swim, but we rented a moped and scooted around to a few of them just to gawk. The number one sight on Crete is the ancient ruins of the Palace of Knossos. It was here that the Mynoan civilaztion flourished and bacame a major power in the Med. The architecture and paintings are an interesting mix of Greek and Egyptian. They lıved on Crete way back ın 3500 b.c. It is probably the oldest civilization in Europe. They worshipped large bare-chested women that held snakes (a sign of fertility). They also loved the game of bull jumping. It is kind of like the modern olypmic sport of gymnastics where the gymnast would run towards a big brown object, and spring themselves up and over it. Well, in Knossos, they jumped over a live, angry bull. Not too many survivors of that sport...

Santorini was as beautiful as everyone told us. The island is a volcanic remnant after a huge eruption blew the island to bıts over 2500 years ago. The sunsets are the best we've ever seen. We were quite disappoınted at the lack of things to do. All the tours, main restaurants and even many hotels were closed due to low season. So after three days of beautiful sunsets and endless wandering around the same five empty streets, we got bored and left.

Well, off to Turkey we go! We are only there for 10 days, so we wıll try to add something from Istanbul. Happy Thanksgiving to all.