Island of Hydra(Greece) #1

Hydra is a wonderful island in Greece. Colorful, vibrant, cheerful and the most importantly no petrol vehicle is allowed in this hilly island. They how the inhabitants commute? That I will explain in my next post. May be this is the reason my friends didn’t want to accompany me; the poor guy traveled alone in the ancient island of Greece.

Hydra Island - a panoramic view

So, I was alone in this tour and that’s the reason I enjoyed it most. Don’t take it otherwise, what I mean to say, I rambled freely, walked up the mountain, roamed around the harbor, gazed the beauties in small beaches. Oh! I am revealing everything :-)

Flying Dolphin approaching Hydra Port

Took a flying Dolphin from Piraeus (Port of Athens) and it took couple of hours to reach Hydra port. The boat was really flying (only couples of blades were in touch with the water). I was seating next to a middle aged German woman who was traveling with her cute boy. Have had a breakfast with fried feta cheese bread and Cappuccino and enjoyed the blue Mediterranean for the last time, as it was my last trip before I said goodbye to Greece.

Hydra has old culture and history. Everything is perfectly preserved in one museum which is worth visiting, its called "Historical Archives - Museum of Hydra" .

As of now I am posting few shots of some ancient churches. Greece is always considered as orthodox Christian country and Hydra is not exceptional in this context. Previously Christianity was a basic requirement to get Greek citizenship, but not now (though still one has to know basic Greek in order to get citizenship, EU wants flexibility in this one also).

This Church is up above the mountain, I walked to explore the panoramic view and found a wonderful church. In my next post I will write about the journey.

This one is a small church near the harbor.

Copenhagen - Top 5 Places

Amalienborg Palace

My brother is going to visit Copenhagen in this weekend and asked me which sights/places he can cover in 2/3 days. I have been there for much longer period and visited 7 out of the Top 10 places mentioned in the official website. I have not seen Tivoli (an amusement park), because I don’t like tough and exiting rides and never managed to see some museums in Copenhagen.

I really dont agree with the rating of these sites, like Little Mermaid (picture1) (picture2) which is the much hyped statue in miniature, with very little historical significance but heavily publicized tourist attraction. The official site describe it as “Hans Christian Andersen wrote a fairy tale about her, Disney produced the movie, and Copenhagen maintains a statue in her honour.” The interesting fact about this one is the head of the statue is replaced every year with a new one.
I have seen the The Viking Ship Museum (Genuine viking ships on display at the museum in Roskilde.), which was very ordinary one.

10 places can not be covered in a single weekend, so I have to make top 5 for him. I mean the list can vary with the choice of tourist, but if I had been given option to see five places I could have seen these one.

Kronborg Castle

1) Kronborg Castle, Helsingor(Denmark) – Helsingborg(Sweden) – Malmo(Sweden) – Copenhagen(Denmark) round trip. This is a must seen trip, if one is visiting Copenhagen. The Helsingor castle is very famous as “William Shakespeare's play Hamlet takes place at Kronborg Castle in Helsingør.” From Helsingor one can reach Helsingborg in 20 mins by boats. Helsinborg is a very old city with castle and ageold history. Malmo a small industrial town of Sweden, adjacent to Copenhagen seperated by Oresund Bridge. My visit to Malmo and Oresund Bridge was really wonderful.

Canal Tour

2)Canel cruise in small canals of Copenhagen: The fascinating view of different locations like old churches, Vesterport(old port), Opera house, little mermaid, royal ship etc can be seen in a 60 minute guided tour. This canal drive is really enjoying and highly recommended. One can see a large section of the city through this drive.

3)Town Hall - Walking street –Børsen (former Stock Exchange building) - Danish Parliament: Copenhagen's largest shopping area is the Europe's longest pedestrian shopping street, Strøget. There is an Erotica Museum also, unique of its kind. The walking street is quite crowded, and always full of activities, specially near the Town Hall. There is a booklet called “Copenhagen this week”, which contains all details of these activities.

4)Amalienborg Palace : This is the home of the Danish royal family , always patrolled by royal guard, the change of guard is something special for the tourists. A domed Marble Church can be seen behind the Royal Palace.

Frederiksberg Park(Left) and (Right) Shopping street, Strøget

5) I have a tie here with Frederiksberg Park and Frederiksborg Palace :
Frederiksberg Park, was close to my apartment and I have seen many different typical Danish festival here, so you can say I am somehow emotionally attached with it. But the Castle and Natural beauty is really beautiful in this park, the zoo is next to it.
Frederiksborg Palace in Hillerød is located on three small islands in the middle of Palace Lake and is adjoined by a large, baroque formal garden.

There are many more places I have seen like Rosenberg Palace(pic), Frederiksdal, (Pic), Copenhagen Zoo. The National Gallery, an Art museum situated in Copenhagen centre is also worth visiting. But its difficult to cover by in short trip.

Here goes some more picture link.

Sculpture in Greece

Some observations

1. In first picture, there is deep imprints of clothing (wearing sheets or other kind of dresses), in the standing sculpture. That means the sculpture used to be dressed with typical Greek wearing. During the course of time it has been embedded in the sculpture.
2. Religion and War, God and Kings played an important role in the subjects of these sculptures. For example, Jeus and Alexander.
3. In third picture, we can see the sculpture was not made in a single stone, rather part by part, tied with special instruments. The hand of the sculpture has been disintegrated somehow.
4. The nose and head of these sculptures are broken probably due to the Turkish invasion. These has been the trends of different aggressive community in past in many different countries.

I am not sure of that fact of weather these are correct, but these are merely my own observations after witnessing some museums in Acropolis, like Ancient Agora.

Acropolis

I have visited Acropolis twice in last month(December) and writing down some of my experiences. First see what wikipedia is telling about Acropolis.

Some information from wikipedia is given below.
Acropolis (Gr. acron, edge, polis, city), literally the edge of a town or a high city. For purposes of defense early settlers naturally chose elevated ground, frequently a hill with precipitous sides, and these early citadels became in many parts of the world the nuclei of large cities which grew up on the surrounding lower ground.
The Acropolis of Athens is the best known acropolis (high city) in Greece. Although there are many other acropolises in Greece, the significance of the Acropolis of Athens is such that it is commonly known as The Acropolis without qualification. The Acropolis is a flat-topped rock which rises 150 m (512 ft) above sea level in the city of Athens, Greece. It was also known as Cecropia, after the legendary serpent-man, Kekrops or Cecrops, the first Athenian king.

Well, this is one of the World heritage sites and major touristic attraction of Greece. I liked it because of its structure and delicacy. The long pillars are made up of small pieces of identical cylindrical stones, placed vertically. Each of them are exactly same. Probably they have invented some techniques to achieve this surprising degree of accuracy. See the pics below from the Temple of Jeus where it is clearly shown how each of the pillars were made.

The view of the city from the top of Acropolis is awesome. We visited couple of Museums in Acropolis including the Temple of Agora and Tession, couple of ruined theatres and Parthenon obviously. This is one of my best heritage sites I have ever seen in my life.