Notices by Infoseepage (infoseepage@mastodon.social)

Pretty sore from the last few days. Let myself wake up naturally instead of setting an alarm. Woke up at 11.30am because my bladder was about to explode. Not sure how much I'll be able to see/do today, but going to get this day started and see. Probably try to do an exterior walk-around today. I think you can pay a fee to walk a portion of the battlements. Do that another day. A quick trace of the walling, not counting the port walls/forts is about 3.6km. Probably spend two days just on walls

@samerfarha That is a lot of steps! Most I've taken this trip in a day was about 33k and that pretty much broke me. Trip average was 17k, but I suspect that's been dropping. Since getting to Greece and high temps 10-12k is about what I can do without too much next day impact.

Stopping for a water break as otherwise I'm going to quite possibly faint before getting to my hotel. 950m left to walk. Brutal day physically and mentally, but seen some amazing things today.

We've docked. There are several fortresses and wall systems going right down to the harbor. During the siege of 1522 there were two chains going between three towers to protect the port.

Rhodes.

This is Feraklos castle. It was built during the Byzantine era and was captured by the knights in the early 1300s as their first foothold on the island. They started repairing it about a century later and considerably fortified it. Lindos, Feraklos and Rhodes itself were the three strongholds of the knights on the island. Feraklos was captured after a long siege by the Ottomans in 1523. Rhodes fell first.

Can't really see it very well due to haze, but I'm pretty sure that's the Acropolis of Lindos. It has an Ancient Greek temple dedicated to Athena, as well has some other large columnar buildings. The Knights of St. John built a castle surrounding the citadel in the 14th century. I took some pictures with my Nikon and will have to take a look at them later. Can't see much in the cell phone pics.

Left the island of Karpathos a little while ago. The ferry stops at a lot of places on its way to Rhodes. I wonder how much shorter an express version of the trip would be. Interesting to see some additional islands along the way, but some days you just want to get there and be done.

Got some better views of the fortress as we left.

Basically on that side, there was nowhere for a bowman to stand to make use of those crenellations. Maybe there was a wooden walkway at one point with memes set into putlog holes in the wall to support a walkway. Can't see that level of detail from here unfortunately.

The fortress consists of a large rectangular tower with an unusually high batter. I don't know if this was to increase stability of the structure or to protect against the impact of missiles. Given the date of its construction indicated on Wikipedia, it would have been built before the advent of gunpowder weaponry for siege-craft. There's a high walled courtyard and the walls are crenellated, but there doesn't appear to be a stone-built walkway at least on the seaward side.

After close to three hours at sea, we are still off Crete. We just stopped at a port called Sitia. It features a small Venetian fortress called Kazarma, which dates back to the 13th century. The Venetians slighted the defenses to try and limit its use by the Ottomans when they decided they were overmatched.

Some interesting night time sights of Heraklion. Very few people - many cats.

Didn't sleep. Going to make this transit to Rhodes less than fun. No taxis or buses running in the early morning, so humped my pack across town. Made the ferry with about a half hour to spare and didn't get mugged or anything.

@fitheach Stayed at the Salutation when I visited the area. Said to be the oldest operating hotel in Scotland. Famously hosted a belated birthday party for Bonnie Prince Charlie on NYE of 1745. Bowie played a gig there and the Beatles stayed there too. Place has about as much history as it's possible to have for an establishment. Be a shame for it to close.

I have to say I've not been enamored with Heraklion's noise. It is just constant blaring horns, loud music played deliberately out open car windows and people doing burnouts and shit and the police seem to be absolutely nowhere.

Ukraine struck two of Russia's frigates, a large landing ship, a corvette and other vessels along with all the shore-side targets previously announced. Without a navy of their own, Ukraine is bit by bit ending Russian naval use of the Black Sea, something they've enjoyed since the days of Catherine the Great.

Since I spent much of the day contemplating what life was like in the Mediterranean 3700 years ago, I missed out on most of the eclipse pre-excitement. I also missed one of the big stories of the day, which that the Novorossiysk strike (of which I was aware) was far bigger and more effectual than initial reports.

@Strandjunker Alternatively, could have convoyed to a different airport and left from there. Lots of ways to reduce risk without actively endangering a plane load of people, but that is what they went with, they chose to see if the AF One would eat a missile on takeoff while full of passengers.

@Strandjunker This could have been handled differently without impacting Trump's safety. They could have done the catering van routine, taken off in the exec jet and then have him do an interview saying that due to a mechanical issue he had taken the exec jet as the POTUS is a very big VIP with a schedule to keep. Would have instantly removed the target from the AF One jet filled with people.