“Greece – Let’s join the adventure and
discover mysteries of ancient times”
Samothrace
Samothrace
is a fairy island located in the northern Aegean Sea
Samothrace is a fairy island located in the
northern Aegean Sea, where the sea is contiguous to the sky. The name of this
place may impress many, because it was where Louvre found the headless marble
statue of Nike – known as the winged goddess. This place is famous for its
fierce waves created by the intersection of Marmara and Aegean currents, making
the coastal land become dangerous. Yachts are usually required to leave off
this area and tourists will be transferred to another ferry in Thracian Harbor
if they want to visit the inner island.
This is a wild island surrounded by bushy
jungles which are filled with trees, streams and fountains. There are
approximately 100,000 goats on the island. There are not too many tourists and
they go in a small group. As soon as the ferry made a landfall, we went around
visiting by bus. Sometimes, this bus left us right in the middle of the streets
when it had to take care of local children going to school. During the trip, we
were accompanied by a police car (maybe it is the only one on this island).
Nike
Nike,
known as the winged victory goddess
Nike, known as the winged victory goddess,
on Samothrace is an image of a marble body with a nice breast under a tight
costume. This statue was discovered in 1863, when a French messenger walked on
his way to Turkey found it on Fengari mountain base in a ruin where was
regarded as “God’s Shrine” after a long latent religious war from the 5th
century B.C. Those rites are executed at night when pilgrims do penance for
their sins. When we were back to this ruined shrine, we found many traits of
Christian religion although the shrine tended to honor many Gods instead of a
sole God.
As usual, the French messenger packed the
treasure he found and sent the statue to Paris. What is left of the statue in
Samothrace is a plaster copy of it. “It was so kind of them to send us this
copy” – angrily said the Greek tourist guide.
The island is dominated by Fengari
Mountain: with the height of 1,611m, it is the highest mountain within Aegean
area. Homer Epic said 3,000 years before, Poseidon – God of the Sea – used to
sit on this mountain to observe the Trojan War. And he really had a perfect
view to watch the battles because the island was not too far from Dardanelles Mountain
– where the battles between of Trojan villagers and Greek took place.
We didn’t tend to understand more about
Gods when visiting the islands around Greece in Turkey Bay. But the images of
ancient Gods seemed to appear everywhere, making us imagine their strength and
power.
Limnos
Limnos,
a beautiful harbor town
Limnos, which is not too far from
Samothrace southerly, was invaded by Turkish within more than 400 years, to
1912. 3 years later, a big harbor arose in Moudros Bay, becoming the center of
Allied bas in the war of Gallipoli; this beautiful harbor town of Myrina is
still separated at Byzantine Castle on the cape, dividing this town into 2 bays
– Greece Bay and Turkey Bay.
Previously, Limnos used to be the mother
country of Hephaestus – God of blacksmiths and volcanoes – who lived there
after the anger of Zeus who made him to leave off Olympus mount. Girls living
in Limnos crushed on Hephaestus, and after Aphrodite betrayed Hephaestus, they
threw her statue into the sea. After that, these angry women were abandoned by
men so they cut their throats. This extreme action is saved as “a Limnian deed”
in Greece Mythology.
We were accompanied on the boat owned by
Professor Marsh McCall – scholars at Stanford University. He explained the
concepts of Greek about destiny and time to us. He had passions for Sophocles
play about a talented bowman who was bitten by a snake upon his way to save
Trojan War. The wound gave out such a bad smell that his comrades abandoned him
to make for Trojan War. Philoctetes stayed alone in a cave. McCall and we
visited caves and insisted on the fact that he lived there, overcame many
challenges to re-join the army and used the bow of Heracles to kill Paris and
brought Victory to the Greek. Professor McCall couldn’t keep his tears from
falling when reading last 60 lines of Iliad Epic of homer about War process.
After that, we honorably marched out of the Philoctetes cave.
Hephaestus
Hephaestus
Hephaestus, an ancient Greek playwright,
once mentioned a special wine made of grapes called Kalabaki 250 years ago.
This wine easily made us think of heavy wine with the odor of soil. You can
find everything of ancient Greek in Limnos Archaeology Museum where there is a
nice old cauldron taken in Troy.
Chios
Chios
Island
Chios, the fifth largest island of Greece,
was named after a great snow storm which is relevant to Poseidon’s birthday.
Homer was said to have been born here although many sources stated that he was
born in other 5 locations. Tourists can watch the Turkey Bay clearly from here.
Initially, Chios Island was replaced by Genoese; they built solid house systems
here. After that, in 1566, the Turkish moved in and lived here until 1912. The
Greek said that the Turkish killed more than 30,000 men, women and children and
turned 45,000 people into slaves in 1822 when Chios took part in a civil war of
Greece. A small church in the entrance of Nea Moni Monastery exhibited bones of
5,000 priests and refugees in a massacre in 1822. This wound is so deep that it
has taken so much time for the citizens to recover from it.
Chios Island is an ideal place so that Greek
ship owners came to live and committed a tax fraud. Ordinary people come to
visit Nea Moni. Nea Moni is located in a valley among mountains of Chios. This
is the central area of earthquakes and in 1881 earthquake, the vault of
monastery was in buried, bringing 11th century masterpieces of
mosaics with it. Since then, it has become a monument of restored art works.
However, there are leaks on the walls and the vault, still. One of the most
wonderful masterpieces is the gilt picture about the scene in which Jesus
drowned himself into green flows of Jordan with Saints and Angels in the baptism.
The symbol of the Ivy is still hung onto the altar honorably.
Nisyros
Nisyros
volcano
Poseidon played an important role in
forming Nisyros. The myth said that he was angrily throwing Kos Islamd into a
Titan called Polyvotis and the Titan was kicked away. Polyvotis became a
volcano in Nisyros. This volcano erupted in 1988 but there is lots of sulphur
surrounding there. In the archeology museum in Mandraki harbor, we realized
that Nisyros had dedicated 30 ships to Greek Navy in Trojan War.
The most beautiful place in Aegean is a
small village in Nisyros called Nikia. The village is 400m above the sea
surface and located right on the volcano crater. The entrance to the village is
decorated by white horses and a small square with black and white tiles. One
side of the village is the sea; another side is the ladder to green church
Orthodox. The village scene is identical to a picture between 2 pubs. In each
pub, under the grapevine trellis, the pub owner introduced a special drink of
the island – soumada – a drink made of almonds. Outside of the second pub,
there were 2 men and a priest having coffee and chatting. They spoke Greek then
switched to American English. After the earthquake in 1953, there were many
moving to America although not all stayed. An old lad wore a cap of New York
Mets baseball team happily discussed “Maybe the team hasn’t reached their best”.
Gialos Harbor
Gialos
Harbor
Gialos Harbor on Simi Island is very
different from others. It is tiny with classical houses painted in white and
decorated in brown and by soil. They spread over the hill and reflect
themselves in the water. The house is specially designed: each has a coated
wall and a vault-shaped window. A myth about Simi said: Zeus was furious when
Prometheus dominated the island, so he turned Prometheus into a monkey as a
punishment, and the story was spread mouth-by-mouth. The second myth said that
one in thousands of Poseidon’s wives was Simi Goddess; and the island was named
after her.
The 10-day trip in Aegean Sea became
wonderful experiences. We called it “the mysterious call of Poseidon”. Once stepping
on these islands, no one can resist their charming beauty.
