THE PHOTOGRAPHIC JOURNEY - Spetses, Monemvasia ( GREECE 2017 )

Posted by Dr. Theodor Yemenis October 28, 2017

THE PHOTOGRAPHIC JOURNEY - Spetses, Monemvasia ( GREECE 2017 )

Poros, Spetses and Monemvasia

This is the "digital" part of the photographic travel log from a 7 day sailing trip in Greece on October 2017. All pictures shot with a NIKON1 J4 camera. ( For the analog part see the separate blog entry: GREECE ANALOG IMPRESSIONS )

It is not so often that I am sailing so late in Greece but the experiment this year was rewarding. Maybe I was simply lucky. The temperatures were above 25 deg. C and the wind no more than 3-4 Bf.

After spending 4 days in Athens ( see the photographic travel log: ) we set sails for the nearby saronic islands and the coast of Peloponnese.

Poros

Spetses

we are the only yacht ... lying along side ...

lying at anchor in Zogeria bay ( Spetses)

Zogeria Bay, Spetses

Spetses to Monemvasia

MONEMVASIA

[ Wikipedia citation ]

Monemvasia (Greek: Μονεμβασία) is a town and a municipality in Laconia, Greece. The town is located on a small island off the east coast of the Peloponnese. The island is linked to the mainland by a short causeway 200m in length. Its area consists mostly of a large plateau some 100 metres above sea level, up to 300 m wide and 1 km long, the site of a powerful medievalfortress. The town walls and many Byzantine churches remain from the medieval period.

Brief History

The town's name derives from two Greek words, mone and emvasia, meaning "single entrance". Its Italian form, Malvasia, gave its name to Malmsey wine. Monemvasia's nickname is the Gibraltar of the East or The Rock.

The town and fortress were founded in 583 by inhabitants of the mainland seeking refuge from the Slavic and the Avaric invasion of Greece. A history of the invasion and occupation of the Peloponnese was recorded in the medieval Chronicle of Monemvasia.

From the 10th century AD, the town developed into an important trade and maritime centre. The fortress withstood the Arab and Norman invasions in 1147; farm fields that fed up to 30 men were tilled inside the fortress. William II of Villehardouin took it in 1248, on honourable terms, after three years of siege; in 1259 William was captured by the Greeks after the battle of Pelagonia and in 1262 it was retroceded to Michael VIII Palaiologos as part of William's ransom.

It remained part of the Byzantine Empire until 1460, becoming the seat of an imperial governor, a landing place for Byzantine operations against the Franks, the main port of shipment (if not always production) for Malmsey wine, and one of the most dangerous lairs of corsairs in the Levant.

The Ottomans then ruled the town until the brief Venetian recovery in 1690, then again from 1715 to 1821. It was known as "Menekşe" ("Violet" in Turkish) during Ottoman rule and was a sanjak(province) centre in the Morea Eyalet.

The commercial importance of the town continued until the Orlov Revolt(1770) in the Russo-Turkish War, which saw its importance decline severely.

The town was liberated from Ottoman rule on July 23, 1821 by Tzannetakis Grigorakis who entered the town with his private army during the Greek War of Independence.