Cruise ship
A cruise ship is a passenger ship used for pleasure voyages when the voyage itself, the ship's amenities, sometimes the different destinations along the way, form part of the passengers' experience. Transportation is not the only purpose of cruising on cruises that return passengers to their originating port. On "cruises to nowhere" or "nowhere voyages", cruise ships make 2-to-3 night round trips without any ports of call. In contrast, dedicated transport-oriented ocean liners do "line voyages" and transport passengers from one point to another, rather than on round trips. Traditionally, shipping lines build liners for the transoceanic trade to a higher standard than that of a typical cruise ship, including higher freeboard and stronger plating to withstand rough seas and adverse conditions encountered in the open ocean, such as the North Atlantic. Ocean liners usually have larger capacities for fuel and other stores for consumption on long voyages, compared to dedicated cruise-ships, but few ocean liners remain in existence—note the preserved liners and Queen Mary 2, which make scheduled North Atlantic voyages.
Although luxurious, ocean liners had characteristics that made them unsuitable for cruising, such as high fuel-consumption, deep draughts that prevented their entering shallow ports, enclosed weatherproof decks inappropriate for tropical weather, cabins designed to maximize passenger numbers rather than comfort. The gradual evolution of passenger-ship design from ocean liners to cruise ships has seen passenger cabins shifted from inside the hull to the superstructure and provided with private verandas. Modern cruise ships, while sacrificing some qualities of seaworthiness, have added amenities to cater to water tourists, recent vessels have been described as "balcony-laden floating condominiums"; the distinction between ocean liners and cruise ships has blurred with respect to deployment, although differences in construction remain. Larger cruise ships have engaged in longer trips, such as transoceanic voyages which may not return to the same port for months; some former ocean liners operate as cruise ships, such as Marco Polo, although this number is diminishing.
The only dedicated transatlantic ocean liner in operation as a liner as of December 2013 is Queen Mary 2 of the Cunard Line. She has the amenities of contemporary cruise ships and sees significant service on cruisesCruising has become a major part of the tourism industry, accounting for U. S.$29.4 billion, with over 19 million passengers carried worldwide as of 2011.. The industry's rapid growth has seen nine or more newly built ships catering to a North American clientele added every year since 2001, as well as others servicing European clientele. Smaller markets, such as the Asia-Pacific region, are serviced by older ships; these are displaced by new ships in the high-growth areas. As of 2019 the world's largest cruise-ship was Royal Caribbean International's Symphony of the Seas along with its three sister ships Harmony of the Seas, Allure of the Seas, Oasis of the Seas which round out the top 4 largest cruise liners in the world; the birth of leisure cruising began with the formation of the Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Company in 1822.
The company started out as a shipping line with routes between England and the Iberian Peninsula, adopting the name Peninsular Steam Navigation Company. It won its first contract to deliver mail in 1837. In 1840, it began mail delivery to Alexandria, via Gibraltar and Malta; the company was incorporated by Royal Charter the same year, becoming the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company. P&O first introduced passenger cruising services in 1844, advertising sea tours to destinations such as Gibraltar and Athens, sailing from Southampton; the forerunner of modern cruise holidays, these voyages were the first of their kind, P&O Cruises has been recognised as the world's oldest cruise line. The company introduced round trips to destinations such as Alexandria and Constantinople, it underwent a period of rapid expansion in the latter half of the 19th century, commissioning larger and more luxurious ships to serve the expanding market. Notable ships of the era include the SS Ravenna built in 1880, which became the first ship to be built with a total steel superstructure, the SS Valetta built in 1889, the first ship to use electric lights.
Some sources mention Francesco I, flying the flag of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, as the first cruise ship. She was built in 1831 and sailed from Naples in early June 1833, preceded by an advertising campaign; the cruise ship was boarded by nobles and royal princes from all over Europe. In just over three months, the ship sailed to Taormina, Syracuse, Corfu, Delphi, Athens, Constantinople, delighting passengers with excursions and guided tours, card tables on the deck and parties on board. However, it was not a commercial endeavour; the cruise of the German ship Augusta Victoria in the Mediterranean and the Near East from 22 January to 22 March 1891, with 241 passengers including Albert Ballin and wife, popularized the cruise to a wider market. Christian Wilhelm Allers published an illustrated account of it as Backschisch; the first vessel built for luxury cruising, was Prinzessin Victoria Luise of Germany, designed by Albert Ballin, general manager of Hamburg-America Line. The ship was completed in 1900.
The practice of luxury cruising made steady inroads on the more established market for transatlantic crossings. In the competition fo
Koliri
Koliri, is a village and a community in the municipality of Pyrgos, Greece. It is situated 3 km northeast of Pyrgos town centre and 3 km northwest of Varvasaina; the Greek National Road 74 passes south of the village. Its population, according to the 2011 census, is 621 for the village, 979 for the community, which includes the village Kolireikes Parangges, it has the Church of the Saints Theodore. Its elevation is 90 m. Koliri suffered damage from the fires of August 2007. Koliri has a football team called Anatoli, which plays in the local championships. List of settlements in Elis Koliri at the GTP Travel Pages Koliri - A Historical Review
Pyrgos, Elis
Pyrgos is the capital of the Elis regional unit in Greece. The city is located in the western part of the Peloponnese, in the middle of a plain, 4 kilometres from the Ionian Sea; the river Alfeios flows into sea about 7 km south of Pyrgos. The population of the town Pyrgos is 25,180, of the municipality 47,995. Pyrgos is 16 km west of Olympia, 16 km southeast of Amaliada, 70 km southwest of Patras and 85 km west of Tripoli; the municipality Pyrgos was formed during the 2011 local government reform by the merger of the following 4 former municipalities, that became municipal units: Iardanos Oleni Pyrgos VolakasThe municipality has an area of 456.610 km2, the municipal unit 170.866 km2. The municipal unit of Pyrgos is divided into the following communities: Pyrgos Agios Georgios Agios Ilias Agios Ioannis Ampelonas Elaionas Granitsaiika Katakolo Koliri Korakochori Lasteika Leventochori Myrtia Palaiovarvasaina Salmoni Skafidia Skourochori Varvasaina Vytinaiika In the 1510s, during Ottoman rule over Greece, a villager from Tsorota of Kalavryta decided to move and reform the area of Pyrgos which up until was uncultivated.
During this reformation he found in a well a large amount of gold ancient coins which he delivered to the Sultan as the rightful owner. The Sultan, Selim I, in order to honor his integrity named him ruler of the region and gave him a great acreage expanding from Alfeios river until the village Agios Ioannis, located near Katakolo; this area was uninhabited. According to the stories the new ruler built a great tower on a hill in order to supervise his fields and his flocks; this was the first settlement of the area. Pyrgos has a hot-summer mediterranean climate with hot and dry summers and rainy winters with mild temperatures. Annual precipitation is sizeable, above 900 mm, it peaks in late autumn. Pyrgos has a train station with regular trains to the port of Olympia. Service on the line from Patras to Kalamata via Pyrgos has been suspended in 2011. Pyrgos has a bus terminal, served by KTEL Ileias, with regular buses for the regional routes to most places in Elis as well as for intercity routes to larger cities such as Patras, Ioannina and Thessaloniki.
The Greek National Road 9 connects Pyrgos with Patras and Kyparissia, the Greek National Road 74 run from Pyrgos to Tripoli via Olympia. The nearest airport is located in Andravida near the town of Amaliada but it is served for military operations only; however there are plans to open passenger operations in the next years. The alterative airports for passenger operations are Araxos airport. Located in the province of Aichaia about 60 km or Kalamata Captain Vasilios Constatakopoulos airport, in Messinia province near Kalamata about 120 km from the city. Paniliakos F. C. Andreas Avgerinos, politician Petros Avgerinos, mayor of Pyrgos Nakis Avgerinos, politician Giorgos Karagounis, footballer Kostas Kazakos and politician George Pavlopoulos, poet Takis Sinopoulos, poet Stephanos Stephanopoulos, politician and 165th Prime Minister of Greece Theodoros Xydis and essayist. Sakis Karagiorgas and Panteion University Rector List of settlements in Elis Official website
Museum of Ancient Greek Technology
The Museum of Ancient Greek Technology is a museum in Katakolo, Greece. It was founded by Kostas Kotsanas and holds 200 operating reconstructions of mechanisms and inventions of the ancient Greeks covering the period from 2200 BC to 100 AD, it is 500 meters from the pier. The tour is conducted in English / French by the curator, while the exhibits are accompanied by explanatory labels in English as well as rich audio-visual material; the museum's exhibits include: The Alarm Clock of Plato Automatic Opening of the Temple Gates after sacrifice on its altar The “Static” Automatic Theatre of Heron of Alexandria The Hydraulic Clocks of Ktesibios Heron’s Aeolosphere The Automatic Maid “Odometer” The Movable Automatic Theatre of Heron of Alexandria Crane With Winches for the elevation of mast and load Perpendicular Mycenaean loom The “Web” of Penelope The Catapult “Palindonos”, Bale-fires and Beacons Acoustic Telegraph Elevating Mechanism of Two-Sided Elevation Hysplex Ancient Greek musical instruments Kotsanas, Kostas - Familiar and Unfamiliar Aspects of Ancient Greek Technology Kotsanas, Kostas - Ancient Greek Technology Kotsanas, Kostas - The Musical Instruments of the Ancient Greeks Official site www.cyprusevents.net www.mlahanas.de Swansea university www.diakopes.gr
Greece
Greece the Hellenic Republic, self-identified and known as Hellas, is a country located in Southern and Southeast Europe, with a population of 11 million as of 2016. Athens is largest city, followed by Thessaloniki. Greece is located at the crossroads of Europe and Africa. Situated on the southern tip of the Balkan Peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, Turkey to the northeast; the Aegean Sea lies to the east of the mainland, the Ionian Sea to the west, the Cretan Sea and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. Greece has the longest coastline on the Mediterranean Basin and the 11th longest coastline in the world at 13,676 km in length, featuring a large number of islands, of which 227 are inhabited. Eighty percent of Greece is mountainous, with Mount Olympus being the highest peak at 2,918 metres; the country consists of nine geographic regions: Macedonia, Central Greece, the Peloponnese, Epirus, the Aegean Islands, Thrace and the Ionian Islands.
Greece is considered the cradle of Western civilisation, being the birthplace of democracy, Western philosophy, Western literature, political science, major scientific and mathematical principles, Western drama and notably the Olympic Games. From the eighth century BC, the Greeks were organised into various independent city-states, known as poleis, which spanned the entire Mediterranean region and the Black Sea. Philip of Macedon united most of the Greek mainland in the fourth century BC, with his son Alexander the Great conquering much of the ancient world, from the eastern Mediterranean to India. Greece was annexed by Rome in the second century BC, becoming an integral part of the Roman Empire and its successor, the Byzantine Empire, in which Greek language and culture were dominant. Rooted in the first century A. D. the Greek Orthodox Church helped shape modern Greek identity and transmitted Greek traditions to the wider Orthodox World. Falling under Ottoman dominion in the mid-15th century, the modern nation state of Greece emerged in 1830 following a war of independence.
Greece's rich historical legacy is reflected by its 18 UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The sovereign state of Greece is a unitary parliamentary republic and developed country with an advanced high-income economy, a high quality of life, a high standard of living. A founding member of the United Nations, Greece was the tenth member to join the European Communities and has been part of the Eurozone since 2001, it is a member of numerous other international institutions, including the Council of Europe, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organization, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie. Greece's unique cultural heritage, large tourism industry, prominent shipping sector and geostrategic importance classify it as a middle power, it is the largest economy in the Balkans. The names for the nation of Greece and the Greek people differ from the names used in other languages and cultures.
The Greek name of the country is Hellas or Ellada, its official name is the Hellenic Republic. In English, the country is called Greece, which comes from Latin Graecia and means'the land of the Greeks'; the earliest evidence of the presence of human ancestors in the southern Balkans, dated to 270,000 BC, is to be found in the Petralona cave, in the Greek province of Macedonia. All three stages of the stone age are represented for example in the Franchthi Cave. Neolithic settlements in Greece, dating from the 7th millennium BC, are the oldest in Europe by several centuries, as Greece lies on the route via which farming spread from the Near East to Europe. Greece is home to the first advanced civilizations in Europe and is considered the birthplace of Western civilisation, beginning with the Cycladic civilization on the islands of the Aegean Sea at around 3200 BC, the Minoan civilization in Crete, the Mycenaean civilization on the mainland; these civilizations possessed writing, the Minoans writing in an undeciphered script known as Linear A, the Mycenaeans in Linear B, an early form of Greek.
The Mycenaeans absorbed the Minoans, but collapsed violently around 1200 BC, during a time of regional upheaval known as the Bronze Age collapse. This ushered from which written records are absent. Though the unearthed Linear B texts are too fragmentary for the reconstruction of the political landscape and can't support the existence of a larger state contemporary Hittite and Egyptian records suggest the presence of a single state under a "Great King" based in mainland Greece; the end of the Dark Ages is traditionally dated to the year of the first Olympic Games. The Iliad and the Odyssey, the foundational texts of Western literature, are believed to have been composed by Homer in the 7th or 8th centuries BC. With the end of the Dark Ages, there emerged various kingdoms and city-states across the Greek peninsula, which spread to the shores of the Black Sea, So
Regional units of Greece
The 74 regional units are administrative units of Greece. They are subdivisions of the country's 13 regions, further subdivided into municipalities, they were introduced as part of the "Kallikratis" administrative reform on 1 January 2011 and are comparable in area and, in the mainland, coterminous with the pre-"Kallikratis" prefectures of Greece
Pontikokastro
Pontikokastro, known in French as Beuvoir and Italian as Belveder during the late Middle Ages, is a Byzantine castle in Agios Andreas, Katakolo, in the Peloponnese peninsula of Greece. The fortress of Pontikon—Pontikokastro, "castle of Pontikon", is a recent name—is one of the oldest Byzantine castles in Greece, it is located in the northern part of Ichthys Bay, 100 meters from the coast, is built on the ruins of the acropolis of ancient Pheia, dating from 700 BC. Different views have been expressed about the name, with some claiming that Pontikon derives from the ancient Greek word pontos, "sea", because of its view over the Ionian Sea. Others claim; the most probable view is considered to be that of the folklorist Dinos Psychogios, that the name came from a corruption of the Latin "fonticum", meaning warehouse, because the castle was used as storage for crop wheat and other products. After the Fourth Crusade, the castle was conquered by the Frankish Crusaders who established the Principality of Achaea in ca.
1205. They called it Belveder in Italian and Bellovidere or Pulchrumvidere in Latin, it formed part of the princely domain of Achaea, along with the fortress and princely mint of Glarentza it was one of the two major sites from which Elis was governed. Beauvoir was granted in 1289 to Hugh, Count of Brienne, in exchange for his half of the Barony of Karytaina, but Hugh soon exchanged it with John Chauderon for lands in Conversano. By 1303, however, it had returned to direct princely control. During Ferdinand of Majorca's attempt to seize the Principality in 1315–16, Beauvoir was captured and held by his forces until after his defeat and death in the Battle of Manolada. Beauvoir ceased to play an important role thereafter, is scarcely mentioned in the subsequent periods of Ottoman and Venetian rule. In 1391 it was taken over by the Navarrese Company, in 1427 by Constantine Palaiologos, after that by Thomas Palaiologos, it was burned down by the Turks in 1470. The castle walls form an elongated rectangle of Byzantine construction with traces of Frankish interventions.
It encloses an area of about 1 acre, 90 meters in length and 55 meters wide. At the northwest corner there is a tower 12 m high and 8 m wide, with seventeen courses of circular and seven courses of rectangular masonry; the first two of the courses date back to ancient Greek times. In the middle of the castle there is an oblong calculated cistern, measuring 5 meters from north to south, divided into two unequal parts by a partition wall, four pairs of square holes from which the water came out sideways. Bon, Antoine. La Morée franque. Recherches historiques, topographiques et archéologiques sur la principauté d’Achaïe. Paris: De Boccard
