The ferry trip was terrific
- I thoroughly enjoyed listening to music and standing on deck being blown
to smithereens. I ended up reading the whole of John's Revelation, whilst
listening to my Tallis Scholars album - a thoroughly fitting combination. The
book is a whirlwind, almost breathless ride through vision after vision of
harrowing intensity. Every character is described in otherwordly terms, the
action builds and builds until finally evil is destroyed utterly. The only
word for it is apocalyptic! If anyone were to take any of this even slightly
literally, they would miss the point entirely. It makes sense only in the
context of a work written to encourage Christians during a time of extreme
persecution at the hands of the great Babylon, which is very obviously a
reference to Rome. This point makes the work completely subversive and
I can imagine the Roman authorities would've dealt very swiftly with
anyone found in possession of a copy of this book. I feel embarrassed to
think that many evangelical Christians see Revelation as some sort of
decipherable description of the end times. They all need to read more poetry.
The catamaran zipped along, away from the
setting sun as the world slowly, inexorably came to an end. We arrived in
Rhodes' Harbour just after sunset and I walked to the hotel using my GPS,
which did an adequate job. The hotel is in the new town but Lonely Planet lists
it under the old town, hence my confusion. Never mind - it's pretty nice all
the same and his wireless network actually works in the room, unlike every
other place I've stayed in.
After an average dinner I strolled
into the old town and got thoroughly lost - it was brilliant. George, the owner
of the New Village Inn was right - it's like another world. Here, more than
anywhere else I've been on this trip, I have felt transported back in time.
It's not at all hard to imagine the Knights of St. John still ruling here.
A chocolate croissant for breakfast this
morning and I returned at a very leisurely pace to the old town. I'm
currently waiting for my lunch at a cafe on a square in the central north of
the old town - not too far up from the synagogue.
I've spent the morning just wandering
around - walked past the old knights' quarters, Grand Master's palace, sundry
mosques in various states of repair and disrepair. The synagogue was the
highlight so far - the moving story of the Jewish community here in Rhodes - basically
wiped out in 1944. I'm amazed Germans can live with themselves but then I guess
most European nations have some skeletons in their respective closets. The Nazi
skeleton is a Goliath compared to any others, though. There is a surprising
lack of churches surviving from the Latin era here - I expected more. The
thing about this old town is that, firstly, it's absolutely enormous, and
secondly, every square centimetre of it cries out to be photographed. It just
can't be captured. Eventually you just give up trying and wander around in a
state of semi-disbelief. It's Sunday today and many of the historical buildings
(including churches) are closed - either they always are or I picked the
wrong day to come. Either way, I've been surprised this morning by the low
number of tourists, although that seems to be picking up now.
So, this time tomorrow, I'm going to be in
Rome with Nadia - how absolutely fantastic! Early start tomorrow morning - the
4:45am bus.
I haven't done much Italian at all over the
past 2 weeks. Whenever there's been time, I've usually felt quite tired and not
mentally up to actually using my brain cells. Perhaps it's been the heat. In
any case, I'm hopelessly under-prepared for 3 weeks in Rome!
The French songs have just switched to Italian -
hilarious, sentimental chanson-style.
