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Showing posts with the label sea

Thassos Island Today and Before

The age of this blog is both old, in the sense of the fast maturing of the internet and IT technology in general, but also very young if we are counting human age in the old-fashioned way. When we first visited Thassos Island a dozen years before, the internet and social sharing technology were about to enter their unstable teenage years, so to speak. It was the time when I bought my first digital camera, the HP PhotoSmart C850, with its state-of-the-art optics and digital technology from the time. Pictures from Thassos back then in the summer of 2003 were probably my first attempt to take more artistic landscapes from our Greece vacations, and today is perhaps the time to compare both what changed in photography gadgets and also Thassos itself after a full 12 years.


Let's start with images first. After 12 years in time distance, I decided to choose the same number of images for this post—half of them shown above, all taken with the HP Photosmart C850 with a 4-megapixel CCD sensor, and half below, taken from this summer vacation with the Nikon D5200 and CMOS sensor with approximately 20 megapixels more than in the old HP. It is insufficient to say that 12 years of maturing of technology in optics, hardware, and software is easily noticeable.

As for Thassos Island, very little changed over the years. Local people are still the same, very hospitable and friendly; beaches are the same as they probably were hundreds of thousands of years before; the Aegean Sea is still crystal clear, just like in the time of Zeus; the company and the sun are the same hot, like in all Julys in previous millenniums and eons.


What is a little different are the people who are visiting Thasos—this year there were more tourists from Eastern European countries, like Romania, Bulgaria, Moldavia, Ukraine, and Russia, and fewer from Western Europe, which is probably the result of the anti-Greece media campaign due to the political conflict between the Greek government and the EU and the financial crisis in Greece these years. I have to say that at least during our stay on Thassos I couldn't notice any crisis or any problems whatsoever. Man-made crises are always like that; they always have profusely enhanced exposure in media, and the truth is never on either side in conflict and never in media. I know it is a cliche, but you have probably heard the phrase "trust no one", and if you ask me, it is always the ultimate truth when it comes to raw propaganda and news in media, especially if it is related to some political affairs like the current one in Greece vs. the EU (and by EU you can freely read Germany).

http://www.thassos-island.com/

Mammoths of Moesia Superior

Once, long, loong, loooooong ago in the days of the Late Jurassic period in the world of Pterodactylus, the famous flying dinosaur, Mother Earth was pretty busy with the work of creating continents, large mountains, seas, and oceans like we know today. At the time the place we know as Europe was mostly covered by a large sea by the name of Paratethys. About a hundred million years later, dramatic tectonic changes started producing large mountain formations today well known as the Alps and the Carpathians, which made Paratethys lose connection with the Mediterranean to the south and form a separate large inland sea in today's central Europe. Millions of years later, there are two remnant seas that still exist with the names of the Black and Caspian Seas. But there was one more in the nowadays Pannonian Basin that lasted almost 9 million years and finally disappeared in the middle of the Pleistocene Epoch, about 600,000 years ago, with remnant lakes here and there, especially in Hungary today. During its long life, the Pannonian Sea followed Earth's tectonic events and once covered almost the entire territory of present-day Serbia. Even the place where I am located right now was once pretty watery and wet. When I was a kid, I played a lot with digging in our front yard and from time to time got lucky with a couple of snail shells that sometimes forced me to think about their origin. They were small and white, and even though I doubt they were that old, they were very much familiar to the ones you can find in nowadays salty seas. Nothing like you can see today in our neighborhood.

Viminacium's Vika

Anyway, in the time of the Pannonian Sea and its old age, more or less around a million years ago, humans were a pretty timid species. That was the time of Homo heidelbergensis, an extinct species who was most likely the ancestor of both modern humans and Neanderthals and lived more or less in the time when the last drop of the Pannonian Sea evaporated or was moved away by the mighty Danube, leaving large plains in modern Central Europe. But the real boss of the time was not the man at all, and instead, after the last dinosaur disappeared for good, it was the large mammoth who adapted very well to the colder climate compared to their southern origins and, evolutionarily speaking, started to grow fur for protection. I am pretty sure that all Homo heidelbergensis and his grand-grand-grandfathers were terrified each time when a herd of mammoths was passing by their habitat, and they were probably hiding every time for as long as the last sound of their giant feet faded away for good. Mammoths were more than 5 meters long, 4 meters high, and about 10 tons in weight, and you can only imagine how, i.e., a set of 50 or more members of the big herd would look and sound when passing by near to your home. Well... a cave, to be exact, which was the most secure home of the time, but still, it must have been very interesting, to say the least.

Viktor and Vika

In central Serbia, just next to the old Roman city of Viminacium, in the prehistoric mouth of the river Morava, which was ending its flow into the Pannonian Sea, mammoths seemed to find a good place to die. Just like elephants do today, they had their graveyards, and one of them seemed to be right there, and archaeologists found numerous skeletons and fossils of mammoths from different periods in history. Among them, the almost fully preserved mammoth "Vika" was displayed in the Viminacium we visited last weekend. Even millions of years after her death, she still leaves a deep impression on all her human visitors.

Well, the ultimate fatal doomsday, similar to the dinosaurs', didn't avoid this species either. Eventually they got extinct due to many reasons. Humans helped a lot by hunting them out and using their meat, skin, ivory, and fur. The Pannonian Sea also vanished and is now perhaps waiting for some severe climate change to get back, and until then, it stays in legends and Djordje Balasević song. Without natural borders and animal bosses, the latest half a million years gave further evolution of humans, and they lived more or less peacefully in prehistoric Serbian land in their tribal societies. More migrations happened in the meantime, and the latest one brought another wave of humans from Africa hundreds of thousands of years ago, which are now considered to be the origin of all populations of humans on the planet. Modern civilization in this neighborhood came only two thousand years ago with the Roman Empire during the reign of the first emperor, Augustus, who conquered this area and established a Roman province called Moesia after the Thraco-Dacian peoples who lived there before. It happened around the year 6 AD, and eight decades later it was divided into two provinces, giving birth to Moesia Superior, the western part of the original province where Romans built several cities and army camps in places significant for cultural and economic exchange and also where tactical deployment of their legions was the most effective for defense of Roman borders and also for further conquest campaigns. Numerous famous emperors and political figures of Roman history were born in Moesia Superior, including Constantine the Great, who was probably one of the most important men in the Roman Empire after the old republic in BC. I tried to describe his life from the point of view of my (and his) birthplace in the post Constantine & Naissus last year during the celebration of Milan's Edict.

Mausoleum

While Naissus was one of the most important cities and army installations for the southern Moesia Superior (Roman Dardania), the most important one on the north was the city of Viminacium. Located near the Danube, it was a natural point for the deployment of one of the most effective legions, 'Legio Septima Claudia Pia Fidelis', which was situated here during the reign of Hadrian in AD 125. Viminacium grew into a large city of the time with more than 40,000 inhabitants and with all the benefits of one large Roman city and the infrastructure of water aqueducts, modern industry, and entertainment with a wooden amphitheater big enough to host more than 10,000 people. In the most flourished period of the time, in the third century AD, Viminacium earned the status of a Roman colony and the right to coin its own money. The most important family of rulers born in this Roman land and living in Viminacium was Emperor Trajan Decius, who was previously governor of the entire Moesia. During the battle of Abritus, he died along with his son Herennius, with whom he co-ruled in the reign. After their death the throne briefly went to his second son, Hostilian, but sadly the family misfortune ended here, this time with a deadly plague that killed both Hostilian and his mother.

The end of the city started with Attila the Hun and his raid in the fifth century, and even though it was rebuilt by Justinian I, it was finally destroyed by Avars in the late sixth century. After that, it started to fade, and after decades and centuries, it eventually got buried under the dirt and sand near the nowadays city of Kostolac and the villages of Old Kostolac and Drmno. However, even after so many years from the golden Roman era and contrary to almost all other ancient archaeological sites that lie deep under modern cities, Viminacium is today an open plain, and simply because of this fact, the only obstacle for further excavation is financial background. Other sites are not that lucky; for example, excavation of old Naissus is almost impossible, as all post-Roman settlements in the previous two millenniums were built on the same ground. Nevertheless, and even with modest funding, Viminacium is today one of the most explored Roman cities outside Italy. If you add all the mammoth bones found in the same area, this is today one great tourist and educational site.

Atrium at Domus scientiarum Viminacium

Archaeological excavation and scientific research started with more than modest funding—Mihailo Valtrović, one of the Serbian scientists, the first professor of archaeology, and the custodian of the National Museum in Belgrade, started digging Viminacium walls in the late nineteenth century with the help of 12 prisoners assigned by the Serbian government due to a lack of qualified workers and with a low amount of money reserved for archaeology. During the twentieth century, excavation was continued on several occasions, and finally, in the dawn of the 21st, Viminacium received the proper scientific and archaeological attention from the Serbian government and dedicated scientists.

The crown jewel of the site is no doubt 'Domus scientiarum Viminacium', a research and tourist center built as a Roman villa with several atriums, rooms, and laboratories for scientists; a hostel for visitors; and a beautiful museum dedicated to Viminacium, Moesia Superior, and, of course,recently, mammoths and their prehistoric life.

Itinerarium Romanum Serbiae

Especially interesting is the museum's exhibition of 'Itinerarium Romanum Serbiae', dedicated to 17 Roman emperors who were born within the current borders of Serbia, the second country after Italy itself. In recent years, especially after last year's celebration of 1700 years after Milan's Edict, it has been recognized as one of the national brands of Serbia and was founded by the Serbian government and the Ministry of Culture.

References and wikis:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moesia
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/02/130207114602.htm
http://viminacium.org.rs/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viminacium
http://viminacium.org.rs/projekti/itinerarium-romanum-serbiae/

Streets of Corfu

Long ago I started to experience that one extremely memorable dream. One of those that doesn't fade out with the first morning sunshine. Instead, it was regularly popping to the surface of my mind, making me wonder if these vivid images, haunting me every now and again, were just a product of my imagination or perhaps there was something more hidden beneath. In the dream I wander the narrow streets of an unknown city, one after another, and after a while I stumble to the big square with large monumental buildings decorated with dark reddish bricks with no signs or any familiar markings I can recognize. I was always wondering where all these colorful images originated from and somehow always had that feeling that I am probably missing an important link to fully understand the whole picture.


Recently this final link suddenly appeared, and during our vacation last week I accidentally found my dream site, and all missing pieces finally placed together, forming a memory almost 40 years old. Somehow, subconsciously, I have always known that it wasn't the dream at all and all the streets and buildings were very real and instead represent one of those almost forgotten recollections hidden deeply in my memory banks. What I saw in my night vision was the lost memory of the city of Corfu.

It all happened when I was the age of my son today. I was about 7 years old when my parents chose to spend vacation on the island of Corfu in the northern part of the Ionian Sea, just about 100 km away from the southern cape of the famous heel of the Italian peninsula. While waiting for the ferry in the early morning, we took a walk to the empty streets of Corfu (Greek: Κέρκυρα), the main city named after the island itself, and what was once one small walk under the morning sunshine now is just one almost faded memory for some reason refusing to die and from time to time reminding me of a beautiful site I experienced so long ago.

A couple of days ago, almost four decades after my last encounter with the island, I decided to take my wife and son on the tourist cruise to Corfu. The ship was medium-sized and filled with approximately 300 people of different nationalities and a not-so-small group of Serbian tourists. During the final two years of World War I, the island of Corfu served as a refuge for the Serbian army that retreated there on Allied forces' ships. More than 150,000 soldiers, royal government officials, and civilians established Serbian administration in exile during 1916-1918, while in Serbia under occupation of Austrian and Bulgarian armies, only women, children, and old men stayed. We started browsing the city in the street of Moustoxidou, where next to the French Consular Agency lies the honorary Consulate of Serbia, or simply the Serbian House, the museum completely dedicated to the WWI events that happened on the island and the island of Vido (Greek: Βίδο) across the harbor (first three images above).

The center of the city is a labyrinth of narrow streets, and it requires great orientation skills to remember where you are or where you were in order to find the place of interest. While we waited in front of Sorbonne's office of the French consular building, I got the idea to use the extremely elongated portrait size of the 16:9 aspect ratio of the digital format and start taking photos of small stone alleys. Generally I don't like this format compared to its landscape counterpart just because the image looks too narrow in the vertical direction, but in the case of the streets of Corfu, I could say this is an ideal combination. We didn't have much time until the ship departure time, so I chose the "Scene Selector" feature on my Coolpix camera (which is a somewhat improved automated mode in Nikon's software for digital cameras) and started clicking at the beginning of each street we crossed. After little post-processing (mostly minor changes in brightness, contrast, and sharpness), this blog post is the result. I included on this page 36 images of beautiful small and narrow streets, all taken in the center of Corfu.

When I was 7ish years old, I was a lot smaller, streets were empty, and everything looked large to me. This is probably why I remembered the whole site and its mystical appearance in the early hours. Especially when we stumbled upon big city hall with loud church bells echoing through the streets. Today tourism changed the scenery a lot, and streets are full of various stores, coffee shops, and restaurants. Compared to the 70s, now walking the colorful streets full of people and friendly salesmen brought a familiar environment of other Greek towns. However, the unusual city's topography, with up and downhill streets oriented in all directions, provides Corfu with little authentic feeling and a small glimpse of the old times when civilization was still knocking on the doors of all Greek coastal towns. My wife chose some small, authentic Greek tavern run by an old couple where we experienced even further travel to the past, where traditional Greek hospitality was still not influenced by modern times and Wi-Fi hotspots and where time flowed much slower.

Our free time in Corfu was between 2 and 4 PM, and photographing empty streets or scenery was mission impossible. Still, I managed to find a couple of empty streets and alleys or ones with not too many people inside. These photos (in the above last segments) ended probably the best, showing Corfu's special mixture of Venetian, British, Italian, Greek, and Byzantine architecture that mainly originated in the 18th and 19th centuries.

At the very end of this special photo story, I can only recommend this part of the Balkans highly, along with Parga—a small town where we settled for 10 days in a family villa next to an amazing olive-tree forest. I am sure this part of western Greece hides many more interesting places to visit and photograph. If you add the crystal-clear waters of the Ionian Sea and friendly faces wherever you look, I am sure spending just one vacation on the island is way too little time. I will definitely come here again in the future, and this time I am not going to let new memories fade again to the point of haunting dreams like before. I have to say, though, that when I was walking the same streets again after a long time, I didn't experience the typical déjà vu feeling like I described in the blog post last year. Even though there were some glimpses that looked familiar, too much time passed, and I guess I wasn't able to recognize exact spots and views, probably due to the fact that children and adults experience events and scenery differently, and not just because of different points of view but also because a child's mind is a lot emptier, and they simply don't have much data to compare with, especially if they are experiencing something for the first time. Nevertheless, the whole experience with my lost memory was at least unusually unique, and I doubt I would encounter many more like it.

Streets of Corfu (Full Photo Album):
https://photos.app.goo.gl/TLw83qgV8ZmMe1Gi8

Parga:
https://www.mpj.one/2013/08/parga.html
https://photos.app.goo.gl/vSM1DFFafrfvMxU96

Corfu (Wiki and Web):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corfu
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vido
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serbian_Campaign_(World_War_I)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Serbs_Corfu1916-1918.jpg
http://www.greeka.com/ionian/corfu/corfu-architecture.htm
http://www.pargagreece.co.uk/