Armidale Diaries 6 - Living with social isolation: Autumn and the Armidale Creeklands

Autumn’s final burst of colour, photo Gordon Smith, UNE campus, 2015 

It's full autumn now in this little university city.

As I write, I'm looking out the window across the back yard past the neighbouring block to Queen Elizabeth Drive aka the Mad Mile, a main drag to the University. It acquired the Mad Mile title many years ago when the longish straight stretch then just outside the city boundaries encouraged foot to the floor acceleration. The autumn colours are not as spectacular this year because of the drought. You can see the impact on the trees with straggly leaves and some dead branches.

It's been beautiful weather over the last few days, classic Armidale autumn weather, with warm days and cool nights. It's the type of weather that encourages people to get out, to meet and wander. That's more difficult now, but it's still happening within social distance rules.

The large University campus with its trees and tracks lies just up the road. From the campus, a combined bike and walking track runs along Dumaresq Creek to the city centre and beyond. I'm not quite sure what the total distance is, perhaps 8k?

I bless the city elders who were responsible for that track. When it first opened back in (I think) the 1970s, it was seen as something of  a waste of money. Certainly for the first part of its history it was seen as something of a waste of money and indeed it did become something of a no-go area. How things change!

The start of the track lies just up Elm Avenue, the traditional drive leading into the University. This is a beautiful road with its elm trees and open space. From Elm Avenue you turn right and start walking. The track winds as the creek winds, leaving the creek and then coming back. I haven't attempted a full return walk yet. I need to get fitter and allow several hours for the return walk. I suppose I could get a bus back, our local bus service is still working, but I want to walk the whole distance. For the present, I start out, walk a certain distance and then come back by a different route.

The thing I most notice is the people. As I came onto the track a day or so ago, there was a man running with his young child sitting on his shoulders. I smiled as we said hello. it reminded me of when my girls were young and I could play with them.

Yesterday there were dozens of people on the track, mothers pushing their children in prams, family groups out walking or riding bikes. Noticeably, everybody said hello or good morning. Sometimes when you meet singles walking with their heads down, alone with their thoughts, you hesitate. But when you say good morning or afternoon, they look up with shy smiles and respond.

We can't really talk, but it provides a human connection.

As I walked, I thought that without covid-19 I might never have known this track as well as I do now. Of course, I have walked and enjoyed bit of it. Down near Stevens Bridge in the center of town is the BBQ area where we used to take the girls and Aunt Kay for a BBQ lunch. Here the girls and I ran along the creek bank trying to get kites airborne. But this is very different from seeing the Creeklands and the track as a whole entity,

It would be nice to think that when this is all over, we might promote the Creeklands' track as a route in its own right, something to enjoy as an entity. It's taken covid-19 to make me really realise its unique value. 

January round-up of my other writing - Historic changes in climate and sea levels, more on hominin history, architecture and the built environment, Airbnb

Today's post is another of those update rambles through my recent research and writing in other places..

Historic Changes in Climate and Sea Levels

I am still seeking to increase my understanding of the enormous variations in climate and sea level over the last 100,000 years, something that affected all human species.  If Aboriginal people arrived on Sahul 65,000 years ago, they would have been affected by multiple changes including especially the onset of the Last Glacial Maximum and the subsequent arrival of the Holocene. The last two saw sea levels fall by 120 metres below current levels then rise to perhaps 3 metres above current levels before stabilising. The climate fluctuated from relatively benign to very cold, windy and dry to hot and moist to today's climate.

These are huge changes. Generally, they would not have been noticeable within any generation, but sometimes sea level changes were so fast that entire hunting ranges could be lost in a single generation. That's a very fast change, one that appears to have been recorded in Aboriginal oral traditions.

We can think of these patterns at various levels. At the highest level, there are widespread changes that affected the varying distribution and indeed evolution of various hominin groups. Then there is the likely pattern at the time the peoples who would become the Aborigines were making their way to Sahul. We then have the changes that occurred after arrival affected the distribution of people across the continent and might well have threatened the very survival of the Aboriginal peoples.

One of the analytical challenges is to move from the broader picture to the local. The exact pattern of climate and sea level change and its effects varied between areas far more than I had originally realised .There was also more variation over time. You simply cannot take a broader macro picture and just apply it locally.

No doubt you will hear more of all this! For the present, my most recent posts have been:

• Understanding the impact of sea level change in Aboriginal New England - a note
• Understanding the impact of sea level change in Aboriginal New England - a second note
• The work of Dr Caitlin Green - the importance of the local effects of sea level changes on the detail of human history

Populating the Globe

I have continued monitoring as best I can research results on early human history, the most recent post being Beringia and the settlement of North America - DNA results from Alaska.

Of all the academic fields I am interested in, I think that history is the one that has changed most over the years. While the basic canons of the discipline remain, I'm not sure that can be said of other fields such as economics, the tool kit available to historians has exploded. In many ways, history has become a truly multi-disciplinary subject.

This poses a major challenge for historians. How do you  absorb all this stuff, especially in areas outside your areas of expertise?

Architecture and the Built Environment

Architecture and  the built environment has continued as one of my major interests. A sad note first. Dreams of self-sufficiency - the Lammas Ecovillage has been one of the most popular posts on this blog in the last twelve months. Sadly, the hobbit house that featured burned down on New year's Day.

At the end of December my Armidale Express series on New England's built landscape and architecture came to an end after some sixteen columns. There was much more to say, but I thought that it was time for a break. I will bring up a post on the New England history blog providing an entry to all the columns in order and then post a link. For the present, I have created an entry point for the last four columns, The story of builder and philanthropist George F Nott, making it easier to access information on this remarkable man.

As an aside, one of the features I have noticed on the UK Grand Designs program is the importance placed on airtight houses to reduce heating costs and hence energy consumption. This included mandated rules and physical testing to ensure the house is airtight. Watching Grand Designs at a time I was writing on New England's architecture and built landscape, I was struck by the differences in perspective, between keeping heat in and Australia's desire to keep heat out. In pre-air conditioning days.this made things like breezeways, eaves and verandahs critical.

 I was therefore struck by a recent story suggesting that modern Australian air tight homes designed to be energy efficient were in fact having the opposite effect. The ABC headline captures the message: Modern homes trapping heat 'like a plastic bag".

Airbnb and similar platforms

My first post on the New England Australia blog this year, How new platforms such as Airbnb and Stayz might support New England development part 1, went in a different direction.

I have always been interested in the impact of new technologies. Most recently, the new communications and computing technologies seemed to hold out the promise of increased individual freedom, diversity and choice. To a degree they have gone in the opposite direction, encouraging centralisation, control, conformity and standardisation.

A particular effect that I have been concerned about is the impact on local activities. The vision was that the the new technologies would provide choice in location and lifestyle. You could work from wherever you wanted, access services from wherever you wanted, breaking the tyranny imposed by distance and travel costs. To a degree that has happened, but for every local job created dozens have been lost through service centralisation facilitated by the new technologies.

In a way, platforms such as Airbnb or Stayz are no different in that the markets they play to are driven by existing patterns. For everybody who knows Bingara, 100,000 plus know Byron Bay. Traffic and service supply are drawn to the existing bigger markets, reinforcing the status quo. .

All that said, I have recently spent time browsing round Airbnb listings for various New England centres. It started looking for specific places to stay but ended with a much extended and quite enjoyable browse. I was left with though that Airbnb or Stayz might actually be used as platforms to support tourist development outside the main tourist centres which automatically attract Airbnb or Stayz visitors. I want to tease this out in my second post in this series.

Update 17 January 2018

Map of Australia by Sean Ulm showing sea-level change and archaeological sites for selected periods between 35,000 and 8,000 years ago. PMSL=Present Mean Sea Level. 

Regular commenter on my history blog JohnB pointed me to this recently published paper on the historic pattern of climate change in Australia:Alan N. Williamsa, Sean Ulm, Tom Sapienzab, Stephen Lewis and Chris S.M. Turneya, Sea-level change and demography during the last glacial termination and early Holocene across the Australian continent, Quaternary Science Reviews Volume 182, 15 February 2018, Pages 144–154, published on line 12 January 2018. 

The authors provided a summary of the  paper in The Conversation, "Australia’s coastal living is at risk from sea level rise, but it’s happened before", January 16 2018. The map is from this paper.

While the authors' analysis of the past appears broadly consistent with my own analysis, there are a couple of elements that make me cautious I need to think this through and will write an analysis on my history blog when I have done so with a cross-link here. Meantime, I thought you might find the results interesting.

Hot air balloons over the Hunter

We were woken by  a hsst hsst sound. While daylight, it was still early. With breaks, the sound continued. We wandered out onto the little patio at the front of the room to find out what it was, shivering in the still cool Hunter Valley air.  In the distance, we could see a hot air balloon.

We had seen them in the sky the day before, but some distance away cross-country. Finding one nearby on the ground was confusing. Had it just landed? What was going on?

While hot air balloons have a long history, dating back to their use as airborne lanterns (Kongming lanterns) for military signalling purposes in China during the Three Kingdoms era (220–280 AD. However, the first untethered flight with human passengers seems to have taken place much later, in France on November 21, 1783.

The hssst hsst sound continued. As we watched, we could see that there were in fact two balloons, that they seemed to be inflating. This is a long range shot. From where we were standing, we could barely see the balloons, let alone the people.  

As the hsst hsst sound continued, first one and then the second inflated, then came the first take-off.

Now the second was ready to go. In this shot, you can clearly see the hot flame heating the air, with the chase vehicles standing by. With hot air balloons, directions depends on wind. The chase vehicles follow the balloons to collect the passengers at the other end and to repack the balloons.

  

As it lifted, the first of the chase vehicles set off through the vineyards. The others soon followed.

Hot air ballooning has become big business, with providers packaging the flights with all sorts of extras such as champaign breakfasts to add to the experience. This is an example. Excitement over, we wandered inside to prepare for breakfast. 

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Stray cats, cruelty, civil aviation and my Hunter Valley trip

Much of Sunday afternoon, Monday night plus three hours this morning before I went to work, were spent first on trying to fix email problems and then on resolving quite aggressive virus/malware issues. Given that this meant that I had not been able to write pretty much anything, I was so looking forward tonight to coming home and settling in to writing. But it was such an early start and then busy day that I was exhausted by the time I got home. 

In an earlier post I mentioned the stray that I felt obliged to feed, in part because I had known him for two years (I’m sure that he had belonged to someone). I called him Blackie; obviously he is not. Still, Scrawny is not a bad name.

For the benefit of the pet Nazis in our midst, he is not my cat. I have neither the time nor money to put him through the cat registration process. I am simply stopping a nice and well natured cat from starvation.

Speaking of Nazis or at least the Authoritarian robotic rule makers who now dominate public policy, we were talking today at work about the impact of the latest anti-smoking laws in prisons and especially mental institutions. The mark of a psychopath is lack of human empathy. The mark of an authoritian system is rules enforced conformity. There seem to be a lot of both around at the moment, For the first time, and it is a first time in this country,the word cruelty has entered the public debate as a marker. I hadn’t seen it before, but I think that it’s right.

The latest Australian Government action on boats may or may not be cruelty. I don’t share some of the views of refugee advocates, but it certainly seems to have had a further adverse impact on our relations with Indonesia.  The practical suspension of our cooperative relationship with Indonesia continues. Assuming the newspaper reports are correct, It is hard to see how the relationship might be fixed before the Indonesian elections.  And then there will be a new and probably less sympathetic Indonesian president.

Turning to more positive matters, I began a series with Towards a new approach to economic and community development 1 Introduction. Winton, while I have only done one post since I haven’t forgotten. The New England aviation series is actually part of the story.

On a still more positive note, kvd will remember my 2010 Greek trip series. I am now doing something similar with my recent trip to the Hunter Valley.  So far only two posts, but I am working on a third. This is the first post in the new series: Journey to the Hunter – Friday 18 April 2014: the adventure starts

Introducing the Berry Island and Balls Head Walk

I don't have a lot of luck with digital cameras. My first, a birthday present, was damaged beyond repair in a fall.  It was one of those silly things. I was trying to take a shot from an angle and wasn't watching properly. I stumbled on uneven pavement and in trying to save myself jammed the camera against a wall. Sigh!

I can't be without a camera, it's a key tool of trade, so I bought a new one. Then the day before my birthday, eldest took me shopping to buy some new clothes. I took the camera with me as I so often do, getting a very good shot of Federal MP Peter Garrett on electoral duties. At Bondi Junction, the camera somehow slipped out of my pocket while I was trying on clothes. We searched, but failed to find it. Sigh! 

Friday afternoon, I finally bought a replacement because I was going on a group walk Sunday morning and wanted to take some shots for a story.

We gathered at Wollstonecraft Railway Station at 10 am. Max aka Adrian (red shirt) organises these walks for both Facetime and Meetup. In recent years the number of singles without current partners seems to have exploded in Australian cities.

It's not easy to meet new people in our now very fragmented cities. One result has been a rapid growth in dating sites. However, that leaves a growing gap for people who do not or may not want a partner, but in any case are put off by the dating game and just want to do things they like doing with other people. Facetime and Meetup, among others, emerged to fill that gap.     

Our group wasn't a big group, none of us had met before, but as it turned out we had interests in common. We were also different, so there was the element of the new.

The walk we were going on was described as the Berry Island and Balls Head Walk. I knew nothing about it, I just wanted to do something different.

From the railway station we walked down the hill towards Berry Island named after Alexander Berry. Berry Island is no longer an island, really a small headland, but is still called that. The area is covered by a reserve.

The path we followed, the gaydan track, runs around the perimeter with varying views of Sydney as well as the remains of Aboriginal art works. Its actually a very pleasant spot and obviously popular with locals as well as visitors. Now it was here that I struck a problem.

I mentioned that I had a new camera. In the haste to get away, I just unpacked the camera, put it on the charger while I gathered stuff, and then just left camera in hand. In doing so, I totally forgot to put in the memory card!  This was one of the few shots on Berry Island before the memory ran out.

From Berry Island we walked towards Balls Head. While very hot, it was a glorious day with the water sparkling on Sydney Harbour. Now this is where I really started to miss my camera.

While I could fit the history into context as I walked along, I had no idea of the variety crammed into such a short walk. I use my camera not just for the photos, but as an aide memoir to help me remember things that look interesting and that I might be able to use to tell a story. Without the camera, I struggled. It's one thing to remember and to be able to look up later, my memory is not that bad!, but without the photo to show what I'm talking about it becomes just words.

By the time we reached Sawmillers, or should that be Sawmiller?, reserve at McMahon's Point, the heat was telling on every one. We stood in the shade and talked for a while. Then it was time to move on, climbing the hill on the other side then up Blues Pont Road till we found the pub. Then we collapsed down and had lunch.

It had been a fun walk, one of the prettiest in Sydney, but I am going to have to do it again with camera in hand to give you the full story. I promise you, it is an interesting storyI 

We broke up a bit after two. I had been going to play tennis in the afternoon, but after such a long walk I fear that I decided not to.

My thanks to Adrian (Max) for his efforts in organising the walk.           

Lindos & its acropolis

Greek Trip, Day 16, Sunday 3 October 2010, Rhodes

After Lunch at Lindos, we walked back to the car and drove up into Lindos itself. I have said a little about the town before. Now I need to say a little more.

The following photo taken from the Acropolis looks down on the harbour where we were swimming. You can see how protected the harbour is. That protected harbour made Lindos a natural place of settlement, while its location made it a valuable trading point between Greece and the Phoenicians. By the 8th century BC the original Dorian settlement had become a major trading centre. The town's importance declined after it joined with other cities to found the new city of Rhodes, but it remained an important religious centre. 

   

The "modern" town of Lindos nestles below its acropolis. I say modern, because most buildings apparently date from the 17th century. It's a pretty place with its white houses and narrow streets. The guide book says that many of the houses were once the homes of wealthy admirals, but have since been purchased and restored by "foreign celebrities."  I have no idea about the admirals nor indeed the celebrities! However, I can see why the the place attracts so many tourists now. 

Our main aim in visiting the town itself was actually to visit the acropolis. I had no especial desire to climb up yet more steps after Moni Tsambikas: a very steep hill!, so we decided to go up by donkey.

Now here there was a problem, for we had just missed the last donkey train!

Wife and youngest daughter strode off ahead to walk up. I was going to follow, but got sidetracked. When I looked up Dee and Clare had vanished! I thought of catching up, but the extra effort proved just too much!

I wandered around for a while, and then ended up in the square chatting with a Spanish bloke who bludged a cigarette from me. He had come across from Spain to work on resort developments, but found that work had vanished with the Greek economic collapse. There was no work at home - Spain too has very high unemployment - so he was just eking out a living doing whatever odd jobs he could get.

While we were still picking up details of Greece's economic troubles and the associated demonstrations from the press, as tourists you don't get a real feel of the problems lurking just below the surface.

Listening to wife and daughter on their return, I really should have made the effort to to go up to the acropolis. It's huge and historically variegated.

As you can see from the following photograph, it has a Frankish feel from the outside, and indeed it was occupied and extended by the Knights of Rhodes and then the Ottomans, but the original building is much older than that.         

Wikipedia records that in classical times the acropolis of Lindos was dominated by the massive temple of Athena Lindia, which attained its final form in around 300 BC. In Hellenistic and Roman times the temple precinct grew as more buildings were added. Lindos' role as a religious centre attracted pilgrims from round the Mediterranean including the ubiquitous St Paul who reportedly called on his way to Rome. 

In early medieval times these buildings fell into disuse, and in the 14th century they were partly overlaid by the massive fortress built on the acropolis by the Knights of St John (Rhodes) to defend the island against the Ottomans.

Despite the overlays, enough remains of the earlier structures to give a feel for what once was. Here the Italians with their desire to reclaim the Roman past both helped and hindered through their reconstruction efforts during their occupation of the Dodecanese.   

I do wish that I had visited. I have an added degree of frustration because I found the on-line material on the site quite patchy. 

With the party all back together again, we repacked the car to return to Rhodes.

Lunch at Lindos

Greek Trip, Day 16, Sunday 3 October 2010, Rhodes

Continuing the story of our Greek trip from Moni Tsambikas: a very steep hill!, after a drink we headed south to our final destination, Lindos.

Attracting 500,000 visitors annually, Lindos is one of the most popular tourist places on Rhodes.

This photo will give you a feeling why.

On the left is the harbour with its pretty beach, forming one tourist mecca. In the centre is the pretty white painted village with it seventeenth century houses, a second tourist mecca. Then on the top of the hill the acropolis looms over the town, adding a particular historical perspective for those with strong enough legs.

I fear that our party had not come for the history but the beach! We parked the car and walked down the steep road to the harbour.

It was very pretty.

Clare and Denise went off for a swim, while I wandered off along the beach to try to find a place where I could find some stuff for a picnic lunch. There were lots of places to eat, but we didn't want to spend a lot of money.

It actually took me some time, but finally I came back carrying cheese, salami, some fruit and a bottle of cheap red wine.

By then, the two girls had had their swim, if with one adventure.

Clare went swimming with her sun-glasses on, I suppose that one must do this in Greece, and lost them in two metres of water. So her mother went back in and actually managed to find them in the very clear water!  

We had positioned ourselves at the top of the beach in the shade. While Clare and Dee went for another swim, I jotted down a description to try to capture the scene.

"The beach stretches round in a small semi-circle, then there is a small headline and the main Lindos town beach.

From on high, each beach is marked by rows of sun umbrellas beneath which perch sun lounges. The tourists cluster round their lounges; some are stretched out sun-baking; others have towels draped over their heads, exposing the rest of their bodies.

Just to the left of me is the official control desk: a sun-shade, a water container, a book of tickets. There are two controllers.

From time to time, one collects his tickets and goes out on patrol in case someone is occupying a sun lounge without paying. The first controller leaves, then a mobile rings. The second controller springs to his feet. Perhaps there is a breach, a tourist has not paid.

We are picnicking in the shade, attracting strange glances. In the cafe behind us, the sound system seems stuck on a Caribean version of the Sound of Music. Repetition six of Get Me to the Church on Time has just started. Initially attractive, the beat version has now become unbearable.

It must be the end of the official day. The remaining beach controller has just picked up his water, his tickets and strolled away. We leave too."

Kalithea Thermi

Greek Trip, Day 16, Sunday 3 October 2010, Rhodes

Continuing the story from Rhodes and the sad failure of the Dodecanese campaign, our hire car was delivered to the hotel. All we had to do was to find our way out of the old town and then to the main road down the East Coast. Sounds simple? Well, consider this photo.

We bumped around on the narrow streets for a while and then, with a bit of help, found our way out. Lost again, we drove around in the new town for a little until we got our bearings.

Finally, we got onto the main road and headed south. First stop, Kalithea Thermi.

Our hosts at the hotel had told us a little bit about this place and recommended that we visit.

Attracted by the sea and the then hot springs, the Italians built a spa there for the particular use of King Victor Emmanuel III and Mussolini.

I had to refresh my memory of King Victor Emmanuel III for he is quite overshadowed in my mind by Mussolini. Born on 11 November 1869, he ascended to the Italian throne on  29 July 1900 following the assassination of his father King Umberto. He was then thirty, not all that much older than the country itself; Italy had only come into existence in 1861.  

This illustration from 1902 presents Victor Emmanuel as a small peacock. Peacock he may have been, small he certainly was, a little over five feet.  He inherited a country that was still poorly developed. At the time the Kingdom was established the great bulk of the population was illiterate lacking a common language. What we now know as Italian was really spoken only in Tuscany.

Victor Emmanuel's Italy was a constitutional monarchy, although the King retained residual powers including the right to appoint the Prime Minister. Politics was unstable. Between 1900 and 1922 the King was forced to intervene ten times to resolve parliamentary crises, something that he found personally difficult because he was apparently shy and somewhat withdrawn and hated the day to day stresses of politics.

As in many new states, there was a strongly nationalist thread to politics covering three main threads: a desire to extend the country's boundaries to include all Italians; a desire the build Italy into a modern industrial state; and a desire to re-create an Italian Empire. As with Greece and the Byzantine Empire, the ideal of the Roman Empire exercised a powerful allure.

Benito Mussolini was one of the nationalist figures. Initially a member of the Socialist Party, he came to the view that socialism had failed. Placing weight upon nationalism, he built a new political movement, the Fascists.

Fascist violence had been growing in intensity throughout the summer and autumn of 1922, climaxing with the rumours of a possible coup. In October 1922, Mussolini led a force of his Fascist supporters on a March on Rome. Prime Minister Luigi Facta and his cabinet drafted a decree of martial law.

After some hesitation the King refused to sign it, citing doubts about the ability of the Army to contain the uprising. The King had really lost his nerve. The monarchy was generally popular and the Army loyal, but I think the King was simply unwilling to risk civil war. Instead, he appointed Mussolini as Prime Minister. Mussolini then used this position to cement his power.

    Kalithea Thermi was opened in July 1929, just under seven years after Mussolini became PM. It was, I think, one of a number of building projects intended to put an Italian stamp on the Dodecanese.

I had no idea what to expect as we came up to the gates, and indeed it took me a little while to work out the layout. It's not until you get right inside that and walk around that you start to get a feel.

The complex is located on a small peninsular, with small bays/beaches on each side. It's a pretty location, although like many parts of the Greek Islands the surrounds are rocky and treeless.

The main building is built in a series of concentric circles and is designed to be light and airy to counterbalance the summer heat.

Even though many of the Mussolini period constructions were monumental imperial, the complex displays a lighter Italian design touch. You can take the Italian out of Italy, but not the Italian out of design!

In a way, the fate of Kalithea Thermi mirrored that of King Victor Emmanuel. In supping with the devil, the King doomed his own monarchy. As Italian ambitions expanded, the King became Emperor of Abyssinia (1936) and then King of the Albanians (1939). The King retained his own popularity long after that of Mussolini had fallen. You can actually see this in the somewhat ironic popular ditty quoted in Wikipedia:

 

"When our Vittorio was plain King,

Coffee was a common thing.

When an Emperor he was made,

Coffee to a smell did fade.

Since he got Albania's throne,

Coffee's very smell has flown.

And if we have another victory

We're also going to lose our chicory.

On 24 July 1943, the King dismissed Mussolini. Then, on 8 September 1943, he announced an armistice with the Allies without first notifying the armed forces. Confusion reigned, allowing  the Germans, who had been expecting this move for some time to quickly disarm and intern many Italian forces.

New military forces loyal to the King and Government were formed who fought on the allied side. To try to preserve the monarchy, the King first transferred increasing power to his son, and then, on  9 May 1946, abdicated.

It was too late. Less than a month later, Italy voted to establish a republic. However, the country split down the middle. A clear majority in the north voted no, in the south yes.

Kalithea Thermi was damaged in the fighting during the last stages of the war. Even so, enough remained to make it a popular movie site. However, the Greek Government with limited funds and its own problems had little interest in maintaining or restoring a site of Italian power.

Deterioration was progressive and cumulative. Finally, the site became a ruin.

As with so many things connected with Greek history, it was the EU that funded the restoration of Kalithea Thermi. Today, you can once again see Kalithea Thermi as it was when the Italians strutted the Dodecanese stage.

Not, mind you, that you will get a full picture.  A bit like current Australian history, the past has to fit present perceptions. In some ways, the Italian period is brushed out in current descriptions.

Next stop, south to another part of Greek history and culture.          

 

 

Rhodes and the sad failure of the Dodecanese campaign

Greek Trip, Day 16, Sunday 3 October 2010, Rhodes

Continuing our trip story from A visit to the Archaeological Museum of Rhodes, Sunday 3 October dawned bright and warm. We gathered on the roof garden breakfast area to plan our day.

According to the hotel, San Nikolis', the main hotel buildings date from 1300AD. There is a minor date problem here that I haven't had time to resolve, because this is a little before the final surrender of the Island to the Knights. 

The hotel buildings were constructed on part of the remains of the 2,000 year old agora of Ancient Rhodes. You will find agora in all the older Greek settlements. They were centres for public gatherings that also became markets. Apparently, the Greek words for I shop and I speak in public are both derived from agora, as is the English word agoraphobia. The Roman equivalent is forum.

We liked this hotel because it was comfortable if a bit kitsch, combining in a strangely satisfying way the  combination that is modern Greece.

The hotel bills itself as honeymoon/wedding location. The decorations were an eclectic mix of modern, mediaeval and classical.

From the roof garden, you looked over the preserved excavated remains of the agora to the wall built by the Knights. In another direction, the view was of the harbour with it's cruise ships.

"We don't like the cruise ships", our hostess explained. "Their passengers crowd the streets but don't spend any money. They interfere with our visitors."

Our host had played roles in many films made in Rhodes. The Island's varied history and built infrastructure provides filmic base from the early period to the Second World War.

One of the best know films filmed largely on Rhodes was the 1961 military epic, The Guns of Navarone. I enjoyed both the original book and the film. 

The events in the film are based around the events of the 1943  Dodecanese campaign.

With the defeat of the Germans in Africa in the spring of 1943, Winston Churchill turned his attention to the Dodecanese Islands, then Italian Territory. To his mind, their occupation would place pressure on neutral Turkey to join the Allies while opening up a new supply route to Russia.

British planning for what was called "Operation Accolade" began on 27 January 1943.  The Americans, who wanted to concentrate on a landing on Sicily and who where suspicious of British post war plans, told Churchill that they would not support the plan.

One of the things that I find interesting and that is little covered in the teaching of Australian history is the nature of the continuing conflict over a very long period between the US and Empire and Commonwealth strategic interests. I think that it's hard to cover simply because the perceptual models underlying research and teaching of Australian history reject the validity of the very idea of an Imperial and Commonwealth interest in the desire to pursue and present the ideal of the growth of Australian nationhood.

As the possibility of an Italian surrender became stronger, the British began planning for a more limited version of Operation Accolade. Again, the US said that it would not support it. Barely a week before the Italian surrender on 8 September 1943, the military resources intended to support the scaled down version of Operation Accolade were dispersed.

With the Italian surrender, Italian forces in the Dodecanese wanted to surrender or join the Allies. There was a scrabble to try to help them. The far better organised Germans had not been blind to Allied plans. The result was the last great German victory of World War II, a humiliating defeat for the mainly British forces attempting to take the Dodecanese. The Islands remained under German control to the end of the war.

The biggest losers were the Jews of Rhodes. In my first post on Rhodes, Breakfast in Rhodes, I mentioned the Jewish Quarter in Rhodes old town. The ancient Jewish community had survived through multiple changes and by the 1920s represented a significant proportion of the population of the City of Rhodes. This seems then to have dropped, but there were still some 2,000 Jews in Rhodes in in 1943.   

The Italians had never fully shared the Nazi's preoccupation with the Jews. Now that the Germans had full control, German policy applied. On 19 July 1944, the Gestapo rounded up the island's Jewish inhabitants to send them to extermination camps. Few survived.    

Today, the guests of the San Nikolis' include a strong German contingent. The European ethnic wars of the twentieth century have been put aside, at least so far as major groups are concerned. German tourism is critical to Greece, German money to the preservation of Greece's past. I think that that's rather good, even if I do not like German breakfasts!

Well, breakfast is over. Now we have to get our car and head out. First stop one of Mussolini's pleasure palaces.          

A visit to the Archaeological Museum of Rhodes

Greek Trip, Day 15, Saturday 2 October 2010, Rhodes End

Continuing our trip story from Popes, Knights, Mussolini & Rhodes, the Archaeological Museum of Rhodes is housed in the medieval building of the Hospital of the Knights. The building was begun in 1440 by Grand Master de Lastic with money bequeathed by his predecessor, Fluvian, and completed in 1489 by Grand Master d'Aubusson.

We simply didn't allow time at the Museum. It sprawls with a series of exhibitions or galleries tracking the Island's complicated history.

I ended up making a beeline to the newly opened Minoan gallery.

In earlier posts (The remarkable story of Arthur Evans, Knossos and the Minoans, Akrotiri, Greece and the passage of time) I explained a little of my fascination with the Minoans. I hadn't actually realised prior to the trip just how widely distributed the Minoan influence was. Now I was looking at the same thing in another place.

Sadly, I wasn't allowed to take photos, but I found it fascinating.

I know that many of my readers do not share my somewhat obsessive love of history. It's an addiction, a fascination with the discovery of patterns. I made the point in an earlier post that part of the story of the Greek Islands can be seen in terms of access to water (this was necessary for life) and the sea (trade allowed growth in wealth.) However, you also have to understand location.

Over the centuries, the sea facilitated the spread of Minoan influence and the growth in Minoan wealth. Location affected the Minoans because they had access to the advanced civilisations in what is now the Middle East. To the north on what is now the Greek mainland, another civilisation grew called the Mycenaean that supplanted the Minoans. Then this collapsed, creating a dark age.

For those who want to know more about the history of this long period, I have found a very useful resource, The Prehistoric Archaeology of the Aegean, prepared by Dartmouth College.

I spent far too much time with the Minoans, so that it was getting dark when I emerged and had to scoot to see things. This wasn't helped by poor lighting in many places (the photo will give you a feel), nor by the extended history covered by the museum.

According to Wikipedia, in the 8th century BC, the island's settlements started to form, with the coming of the Dorians, who built the three important cities of Lindos, Ialyssos and Kameiros, which together with Kos, Cnidus and Halicarnassus (on the mainland) made up the so-called Dorian Hexapolis (Greek for six cities). I have left the Wikipedia links so that you can explore if you want.

The Persians invaded and overran the island, but were in turn defeated by forces from Athens in 478 BC. The cities joined the Athenian League. When the Peloponnesian War broke out in 431 BC, Rhodes remained largely neutral, although it remained a member of the League. The war lasted until 404 BC, but by this time Rhodes had withdrawn entirely from the conflict and decided to go her own way.

In 408 BC, the cities on Rhodes united to form one territory. They built the city of Rhodes, a new capital on the northern end of the island. From then until Alexander the Great's conquest of Rhodes in 332 BC, life seems to have been turbulent. However, Alexander marked the start of of a long period of great prosperity for Rhodes.

Under the successor empires that followed Alexander's death, Rhodes became an ally of the Ptolemies who established a new Egyptian dynasty that ruled there until the death of Cleopatra in 30 BC. Rhodes then became a part of the Roman Empire and subsequently the Byzantine Empire.

All this and subsequent history is mirrored in the Museum. You can see why one can get museumed  out!

Just thinking about it in terms of my own interests in using history to help promote tourism in New England, there is a very real skill in the way history needs to be presented to provide context.

The complexity of Rhodes' history is far greater than that of Australia. Yet the challenge is the same. Without history, the museum artifacts lack context. Yet with too much history, it is easy to become even more confused!

After finally gathering all our party, we wandered back to our hotel for a wash, a pre-dinner drink and then out to dinner.

I have no recollection as to where we went, nor did I take any notes! It clearly didn't stand out in my mind as to food.

Tomorrow we drive to Lindos, passing through three very different worlds in one day.

Popes, Knights, Mussolini & Rhodes

Greek Trip, Day 15, Saturday 2 October 2010, Rhodes continued

Continuing the story of our Greek trip from Walking the walls of Rhodes, climbing down from the walls, we founds ourselves back in the mediaeval world of Rhodes.

Our challenge now was to find our hotel in the narrow mediaeval streets!

My wife had checked the map, and knew where we were going, so I followed along behind. We followed the wall back, and finally found the hotel.

This proved to be a nice place with an internal courtyard. Taking one look at the courtyard, the group sent me out to buy things for our usual picnic lunch.

Do you know, I couldn't find a supermarket or small store?

I followed the street we had come back, and then went in the opposite direction. While old Rhodes is still small, it was far larger than the Greek Island towns that I was used too. There were, in fact, far fewer eating places of all types relative to geography. Finally, I came back and admitted defeat. Then, with my wife's assistance (!), we finally found a supermarket.

We settled down in the courtyard with our bread, cheese, wine and a variety of nibbles to plan the rest of the day. We wanted to see the Palace of the Grand Master of the Knights of Rhodes and the archaeological museum.

In introduced the Knights and mediaeval Rhodes in my last post because the physical architecture of Rhodes is dominated by the mediaeval period. It seemed easiest to come in this way. However, like other parts of the Greek Islands, history is not straight forward, but overlaps, leaving an overlapping pattern on the human and physical landscape.

The Eastern Roman Empire, what we now generally call the Byzantine Empire, may have become Greek in cultural terms, but did not forget that it was the Roman Empire. As the Western Empire declined, the East made continuing attempts to preserve the west, to recreate the Empire. The Pope in Rome continued to assert a claim to primacy, but also had to manage the shifting balances of political and military power in the west, including the continuing Byzantine presence in Italy as well as Norman incursions into Byzantine territory in Italy and beyond. 

During the long centuries, the eastern and western wings of the Catholic Church drifted apart beset by politics as well as theological differences. In 1054 AD a great schism occurred leading to real separation.

When in 1095 the Byzantine Emperor sought help from Pope Urban II to defend his Empire against the invading Turks, one of the things motivating Pope Urban to offer support was his desire to reunite the Church. This was to fall foul of politics, theology and dynastic ambitions. 

The modern dividing lines between the distribution of Roman Catholic and Orthodox Catholic adherents as well as Christian and Muslim adherents all reflect the shifting balances of power in these previous periods.     

The Knights of Rhodes were today what would be called a multinational organisation. They owed formal allegiance to the Pope and combined people from many language groups. To manage this, they were organised into tongues whose masters reported to the order's grand master.

The newly constructed Palace of the Grand Masters allowed for this division into tongues. However, it appears that the Palace today is not the same as the original Palace. Oh no, that would be far to easy!

The Palace was built on the site of the previous Byzantine citadel. Then, when Rhodes fell to the Ottomans in 1522, it became an Ottoman fortress.

In 1856, a huge ammunition explosion destroyed part of the palace. When the Kingdom of Italy seized Rhodes in 1912 from the Ottoman Empire, the Italians rebuilt the palace in a grandiose pseudo-medieval style as a holiday residence for Victor Emmanuel III of Italy, and later for Benito Mussolini. Rhodes would be formally part of Italy until 1947 when it was transferred to Greece for the first time. 

Now all these mind glazing dates are quite significant. I will talk about the Italian period in more detail later when we come to visit the Mussolini built resort of Kalithera Themi. For the moment, I just want to note that the history of Rhodes and the broader Dodecanese Islands has its own unique features.

I keep saying that history and individual visions of history exercise a deep influence on Greek history. To many Greek nationalists, the Byzantine influence, the dream of recreating the great Greek empire, has had powerful appeal. Mussolini, too, suffered from the same disease with his dream of recreating the (Western) Roman Empire.

In 1919, war broke out between Greece and Turkey. The end result was was what would be called today ethnic cleansing. More than a million Greek speakers, half a million Turkish speakers, were relocated.

Rhodes under Italian control was spared this bloodshed and forced dispossession. As a consequence, the Island retained a significant Muslim minority population.

The photo shows the Mosque of Suleiman which is currently being restored. The mosque of Suleiman was built soon after the Turks occupied the city of Rhodes in 1522 on the site of the destroyed Christian Church of the Apostles.

As we walked up the hill from our hotel towards the museum, we passed the site of the huge explosion of 1856 and then walked down the street to the museum.

Now here I want to introduce a practical hint, one that I have referred to before. When travelling in a group in which different people have different interests and go at different paces, do set reunion points and times. Otherwise, you will end up with some waiting for very long periods!

In my next post I want to go back much further into the past, to Rhodes well before the period of the Knights. But that will have to wait until tomorrow. 

Walking the walls of Rhodes

Greek Trip, Day 15, Saturday 2 October 2010, Rhodes continued

Continuing from Breakfast in Rhodes, after breakfast we moved off to find the entry to the walls, asking as we went. We still had no idea just what we were doing, although we could see signs of fortifications everywhere.

Now at this stage, I need to introduce a little bit of history.

In 1095 AD (or CE depending upon your preference), the Byzantine emperor Alexios I Komnenos sent envoys to Pope Urban II seeking aid against continuing invasion of the Seljuqs (Turks) who had penetrated not far from Constantinople (now Istanbul). The result was the First Crusade, whose primary aim came to be to free the Holy Lands from Muslim (Fatimid) rule.

The North African based Fatimids were in fact divided from and in opposition to the Seljugs on political, dynastic and religious grounds. During uneasy periods of peace and war, the Fatimids had progressively extended their territory at the expense of the Byzantines.  

In July 1099, Jerusalem fell to the Crusaders who instead of returning the territory to Byzantine rule established a series of independent principalities, most importantly the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Now I need to introduce a new player. Australians will know them as the Knights of St John, Maltese as the Knights of Malta.

From 600 there had been a hospital in Jerusalem to care for Christian pilgrims. in 1005 Caliph Al Hakim destroyed the hospital and three thousand other buildings in the city. However, the hospital was given approval to re-open in 1023. After the Crusaders took the city, those involved with the care of pilgrims evolved into religious military orders, the Knights Hospitaller.

When the Kingdom of Jerusalem finally fell in 1291, the Knights took refuge in the Kingdom of Cyprus. from there, they decided to seek their own temporal domain, selecting Rhodes, then part of the Byzantine Empire. Still with me? I know that it's complicated, but that's the reality of Greek history.

After over two years of campaigning, the Island fell to the Knights 15 August 1309. Now named the Knights of Rhodes, they rebuilt the city into a model of the medieval ideal. The end result is that the world heritage listed old Rhodes is the largest still inhabited mediaeval centre in Europe.

I said earlier that Rhodes had a very different feel from the other Greek island centres that we had been too. This history is the reason why. If you look up this street, you will see the cobble stones, the medieval buildings.

This was a much tougher world. To hold their new territory, the Knights needed walls to hold of attack in an uncertain world. These were the walls we were going to walk along. Their size is simply unbelievable.   

I tried to find a photo that would give you a feel. This one gives at least a feel for scale. 

I said that the world was an uncertain place.

In 1444 and then again in 1480, the Knights withstood attack. However, in December 1522 Rhodes fell to the huge invading  army of Suleiman the Magnificent. The Knights had ruled Rhodes for 213 years, not much less than the time since Governor Phillip first arrived at Botany Bay in 1788. Rhodes would now be part of the Ottoman Empire for nearly 400 hundred years.

The few remaining nights moved first to the Kingdom of Sicily and then to Malta where they set up a new base. The Knights, now known as the Knights of Malta, would rule in Malta until 1798 when Napoleon occupied the Island.  Today the Knights remain with several orders and internationally recognised vestigial powers as a quasi national entity. 

As we walked along the wall in the bright sun, we looked down into the old city on the left, the new city on the right.  Looking now for photos that might best encapsulate the feel, I chose this one from Clare looking down on the old city. It's not the best shot, but it captures some things I want to talk about. Comments follow the photo.

In terms of the modern, you have the jet trails in the sky, the solar hot water systems. Because of the climate, solar hot water systems are quite noticeable. They are everywhere. Then you have the Greek Orthodox dome and behind it to the right, the mosque. Rhodes is an interesting mix of history and cultures.

The following is another shot. Again, you can see the huddle of buildings and the solar hot water systems. In this case you can also see part of one of the internal gardens that are a feature of Rhodes.

We walked on through the sun to the end of the wall. Now to find our hotel, But that's for the next post!

Breakfast in Rhodes

Greek Trip, Day 15, Saturday 2 October 2010, Rhodes

Continuing the story from Paros & the ferry, we landed at Rhodes about 8am and dragged our bags through the already hot sun to wait for the hotel car. The photo will give you a feel for the size of the boat.

Located in the Dodecanes Islands 363 km (226 mi) east-south-east from the Greece mainland and only 18 km (11 mi) from the southern shore of Turkey, Rhodes (Rodos) is quite a large island: shaped like a spearhead, it is 79.7 km (49.5 mi) long, 38 km (24 mi) wide, with a total area of approximately 1,400 square kilometres (541 sq mi) and a coastline of approximately 220 km (137 mi). As we shall see, the Island's location and size is critical to it's history.

The city of Rhodes itself is located at the northern tip of the island. Having deposited our bags in the hotel car, we walked along the waterfront towards the town, entering another part of the complex mosaic that is Greek history, the world of the crusades.

I had read the guidebooks and knew a little of what to expect, However, I had no visual image, nor did the walk towards the town itself give me a real feel. There were signs of old buildings in the distance, but the road we were walking on was quite nondescript - a sort of Greek port modern!  The road curved round, straightened and we found a wall with an unsigned gate in it.  We walked through, and found ourselves in the old city.

At this stage we had a bit of a problem. We literally had no idea where we were, no idea of how to get to our hotel, no idea of what to expect. We were just at some point in an obviously old place!

What to do?  A few cafes were opening, so the group decided to sit down and have some breakfast and work out what to do.  

That was a strange meal. Billed as an English breakfast. it was a Greek tourist idea of same, a strange amalgam of different styles. Please note the glass shoe. Later I was to have a rather bad experience with same.  

Conscious of my budget, I declined breakfast on the grounds that I needed to stretch my legs and went for a quick walk.

I find in a new place where I have no sense of geography that I need to orient myself. Here I had only a rough idea of where north was, nor could I see many obvious landmarks.

The first thing I did was to walk back to where we had entered the old city so that I had that point firmly fixed in my mind. Then back to the face to stroll in the opposite direction. Here I stopped at a square, marked that in my mind and then strolled around that point.

One of the first things I noticed was a sign to the Jewish Quarter. Now that's quite unusual in terms of what I had seen elsewhere. So that was something I needed to follow up on.

The second thing I noticed was the completely different feel of the place after the other Greek Islands I had visited. The architecture was more massive, the smooth street stones had been replaced by rough cobble stones.

Returning to the group, we decided to do a tour of the old city walls since, by accident, they were open that day. It proved to be one of the best things that we had done. Here I will continue the story in my next post.     

Paros & the ferry

Greek Trip, Day 14, Friday 1 October 2010, Paros & the ferry

An afternoon on Paros finished with us wandering back to the waterfront to buy postcards and to look for somewhere to have dinner.

From the waterfront we turned left and followed the road into the newer tourist area. There we found a cafe and settled down to have some dinner and to catch up on a few domestic chores.

There were lots of specials. The owner explained that it was the end of the tourist season, that this would be the last night they opened until the next season, and they had to get rid of the last of the food.

I mentioned in the last post that I found very few people as I wandered the streets. That was partly because it was siesta time, more because most of the tourists had left. Unlike Mykonos, the smaller number of tourists coming to Paros makes for a shorter season.

Our owner came from Paros but lived in Athens. Each year he spent the tourist season in Paros, working in Athens for the remainder of the year.

  It was quite beautiful sitting there watching the sun set over the water. We sat and ate and talked.

As it got darker, the cats came out in force, roaming the embankment looking for food. They assumed, correctly I fear, that the guests at the various cafes would be happy to feed them.

Youngest has always been a bit of a cat fanatic. Her photos from this and our previous Europe trip are full of cat photos. She fed them quite shamelessly despite protests from others. I was more discrete, dropping bits from underneath the table. It wasn't until the clamouring cat gathering reached a significant size that the others realised that I was a culprit as well!

Paros has become a large ferry hub. That was the reason why we were there. From our cafe, we had a very clear view of the ferries coming into port to pick up passengers. Now here there was a problem.

Given short cash, it was only at the last moment that I had agreed to come. We had booked sleeper accommodation, but my booking was separate.

My wife explained that the others were together, that I was going to be sharing with people, but she had no idea what it would be like.

It all began to sound quite unpleasant when mixed in with stories about travelling on ferries. Yes, I know that I shouldn't mind, after all, I have stayed in youth hostels, but I had now been told all this a number of times over several days. Given that we were not boarding until 11pm and that I was now quite tired, it had become something of an issue.

After dinner we walked back to the ferry port. There we found that the ferry was running late, so we sat down and had a glass of wine and some coffee. The ferry finally arrived and we queued to board. My family waved me good bye, leaving me to work out where I should go. Finally I asked a steward.

He looked at my ticket and said please follow me Sir. I was taken to the reception area on the top deck,  given a key and taken to my room. This proved to be a large motel style room with two beds, a sitting area, my own TV and coffee making facilities, plus a separate bathroom with a full size bath.

I was so relieved that I settled down with a cup of coffee to watch some TV and then to bed. I didn't try to find my family. I had absolutely no idea where they were.

It was only next day when my wife knocked on the door to find me that I realised just how lucky I had been. The others in the party were in two small share rooms with minimal facilities on the deck below. 

By contrast and indeed by accident, I had one of the two best cabins on the ship at the corner of the top deck. This gave me not just a large cabin with all facilities, but also large portholes looking over the front and sides of the boat.  Now if my family hadn't been so quick to leave me, either my wife or daughter could have shared the magnificence!

My wife's reaction as she gazed around was something to behold.  This was not what she expected either!

The ship docked in Rhodes quite late, again making me glad for my cabin the night before. I know that this gloating is quite unseemly, but it was a highlight.   

In my next post I will begin the story of Rhodes. Again, Rhodes has a different history from other parts of the Greek islands.

Did you know, for example, that Rhodes first became part of Greece as recently as 1947?  Or that at its peak in the 1920s, the Jewish community totaled nearly a third of the population of Rhodes?

I did not. However, more on this will have to wait.