Sunday, October 14, 2012

Greece

or I'd better say what is left from my Greek postcards ! Well , I still keep the cards that were mailed to me from other parts of Greece but I have sent all the blank ones I had bought through the years ! I still have my own photos to remind me my visited places ;-) while the cards I got in return are from some places that probably I will never get the chance to visit ! So well these two are left cause actually they are written but I never sent them to the person they were meant for ! So you can say they are like a small diary , well kinda !
One is from Hania , the 2nd largest city in the island of Crete and among the most beautiful cities in Greece if you ask me as it is devided in the "old " and the "new" city . The old part  is influenced by the Venezian and Ottoman presence on the island as well as by the local Cretan style of course and it is amazing ! The new city  eh ..it is new but none the less a tidy one. Hania was first inhabited by Minoans and in the ancient times was known as Kydonia ! What is seen in the pictures is the old harbour of Hania ( the modern one is a few kms out of town in Souda ) . This picturesque port was made after the Venezians settled on the island around 1212. The lighthouse was build around 1600. In 1645 Hania came under the Ottoman rule and the harbour was neglected as the Ottomans prefered to use the port of Herakleion ....


The second card comes from a much younger city Katerini and especially from it's sea-suburb Paralia. Katerini is located near Olympus Mt , the highest one in Greece and enjoys the priviledges of tourism both in winter and in summer. Being very close to Thessaloniki ( the 2nd largest city of Greece makes it a favorite for weekend travelers. The name comes from Agia Ekaterini ( St . Catherine ). It became part of Greece during the Balkan wars in 1912 and its population increased or I'd better say doubled the following decade after the population exchange between Greece & Turkey 


No comments:

Post a Comment