Rhodes & Italy's Aegean Islands:
Winter tour of the Italian-held islands off the Anatolian coast
In April 1941 National Geographic published
Dorothy Hosmer's fourth article about the tour she did, partly by bicycle, among the Italian – held islands off the coast of Turkey in the winter of 1939 – 40.
"Such scenes, abetted by bicycle fever, drew me to the island's interior, but not till I had secured special permission from the military authorities, who notified the gendarme stations along my route.
First I went to Lindo ( Lindos ). Situated on the eastern coast, it has the best protected small – ship harbor of the island and is second to the town of Rhodes in population. Here also lie the ruins of one of the strongest and most important of the castles which guarded the coastline at the time of the Knights.
Thirty – eight miles over a splendid asphalt road I cycled, past Italian villages with experimental agricultural fields and orchards, past Moslem towns with rustic minarets. The ride was a parade of the island's spare but exotic vegetation: Saint John's bread, prickly pear, sesame, casuarina, tamarisk, and terebinth. Then came the Orthodox village of Archangelos with orange, mandarin, and lemon groves whose lush greenery seemed an oasis in the naked hills.
At Lindos I visited a house which contained a fine collection of the so – called Lindos or Rhodes pottery.
Some of the most noted pieces are now in the Louvre collection. I understood why, seeing the exquisite decorative sense, the turquoise and cobalt blues, the tomato reds, the flower and puff-sailed galley designs. All are being reproduced in Rhodes' present – day ceramic works ...
... At sunrise I climbed the hill behind the village. The sea was calm. Castle and acropolis seemed suspended in air. The barren hills behind me, the jagged coast of Asia Minor, were luminous as in a mirage. This is the Aegean's secret. Its poverty and nudity are transformed into radiant beauty by the simple magic of lights and colors."
"Another time I cycled to Embona, Orthodox mountain village. The road circled hill Fileremo with its ruins of Ialysos. From here came Pherenike who, despite the death penalty for women found at the Olympic games, accompanied here son, disguised as a trainer. When discovered, she was freed because of her family's Olympic honors; but thereafter all trainers at the games appeared nude.
Farther along I skirted Mount Profeta ( Prophet's Mount ) with its pine forests, deer reserve, and mountain hotel. Then up, up, to Embona, a drift of white cubes against bald-rocked 3,985 – foot Mount Attaira, highest point on the island.
Native costumes blared against whitewashed stone houses in a trumpet of primary colors: yellow knee – high goatskin boots; red bands on women's blue tunics; men's blue trousers, cut knee-length but in the rear falling in deep folds for roominess when sitting on their heels.
It was Saturday. The air was fragrant with olive wood fires and fresh bread, baked in great square ovens outdoors. Embona's staples are this good black bread, olives, and sheep's milk cheese.
The stranger has no lodging problem here. You simply ask two feet of space on the bed shelf, a wide platform taking up nearly half the one – room houses. On it members of the family stretch themselves like cod drying in a row, papa, mamma, and from the eldest down to the youngest. All are fully dressed. I slept at the end of such a line next to a plump three – year – old daughter. Tobacco, drying from the rafters, perfumed my dreams.
At three a hoarse bawl rent the silence of the night. It sounded like someone working a rusty pump. Every Embona's home boasts a donkey. But the donkey's proverbial independence would not let him lose his individuality in a chorus. Each bided his turn, so that a chain of brays, differing only as distance mellowed their song, bridging the hours until dawn."
Dorothy Hosmer: A Cycle Touring Photographer Breaking Barriers for Women
