Category: Greece
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Classic profiles
Classic profiles It catches the eye, that big head against a rock in the river. I don’t know why it was placed there, but it takes our thoughts back to the arts of Greek antiquity. And that’s always gratifying. The face in profile reminds me of a sculpture I had seen a few days before…
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Mannequins
Mannequins With the advance of modern technology the two meanings of the word ‘mannequin’ – in French as in English – have grown towards one another. The lifeless dummies on the photo, showing clothes in a shop-window, can hardly be distinguished anymore from the living dolls doing the same at a fashion show. Perfect bodies,…
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Tamata
τάματα is the Greek word for vows and votive offerings, referring to a popular practice among the faithful of most if not all religions. I have shown and written about this fascinating phenomenon earlier on this blog in a series of posts dedicated to the local Hindu god Golu Devta in Kumaon, India, and the vows…
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Ossuarium
In one of the orthodox churches of Paleochora I saw to my surprise a big open stone reservoir filled with human bones: an ossuary inside the church in full view! I have understood that ossuaries came into use in places where graveyard space is scarce. After a few years in the ground the remains of…
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Aegina – Paleochora
The old town of Aegina had always been at the coast of the island, next to the harbour where it is situated now again. But in the 9th century the town was shifted inland where it could be defended better against the attacks of the Saracens. In the 18th century there were still 400 houses…
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3-D Devotion
Going through the Herkyna gorge south of Livadia, a town in Boeotia, Greece, one passes the Fountain of Memory and the Fountain of Forgetfulness, the ancient Mnemosyne and Lethe of which Pausanias speaks. For me the water of Mnemosyne has done its work because I remember well first having seen from down the façade of…
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Rolled, rubbed and rounded
The rock and the stones, they look of the same soft make-up, only differing in colour. What a nice and quiet ensemble they make in the blazing sun. Till the tide comes in and the waves wash over them. Then the stones roll up and down in splashing water, rubbing against each other over the…
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A streak of yellow
All I can say about this terrace is that I sat down there once with Theodora for a good meal, sea food of course. After a week of intensive work we thought we deserved it.* And why this photo? Right, because of the pleasant surprise of this bright streak of yellow against the dark and…
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Ελαιώνας
Eleonas is the Greek word for olive grove. There is a real ancient one on the island of Aegina with trees of 500 and a single one even over 1500 years old. What amazing creatures! Having reached such a respectable age, all twisted and grooved and gnarled and knotty, this is not to be seen as…
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Sleeping beauty
The bacchante sleeps off her glow of last night’s pleasure under the attentive eyes of a row of men. Only they can see from their point of view that this Maenad is actually a hermaphrodite. The generous curves of her soft, feminine body are beyond their reach. The kouros stands tall in the characteristic posture…
καιρός remembered 