Minoan Palace and Santorini

Today we visited the ruins of the oldest civilisation in European history at Knossos on the island of Crete.  This area has had human habitation from the neolithic period until the 5th Century AD.  The island of Crete is the largest Greek island with a modern population of 600,000.  Heraklion has approx 160,000 people. 

 Crete has relatively few heritage buildings because of the extensive damage it received during WW2, but some  Venetian architecture remains.  At the port, there are arsenals and ship repair areas from the 16th century.

This is part of the MInoan Palace, which 4000 years ago was the centre of civilisation.  In 2600BC the Minoans arrived from an unknown area.  They brought bronze with them which commenced the Bronze Age or the Minoan Age. Power was given to the Royal families and the palace became the religious, political, commercial and agricultural centre.  The buildings we see are from1700BC.  Earthquakes destroyed the previous settlements, but they went on to rebuild on the ruins on the same spot.  The 1450 BC eruption of Santorini would also have destroyed buildings.   The palace was built next to the river which led down to the port.

About 500 people would have lived within the Palace, including servants.  Within the city around the palace it is believed around 20,000 people lived.  There were 1500 rooms, in labyrinth style built around a central courtyard, which divided it into four sections.

 This is the oldest throne room  in Europe, with the original marble floor and seats.

An example of  the fresco, where men were painted red.  Women were painted white.

An example of the pottery  found on the site.

These were the Queens apartments.  Note the dolphin fresco.  The bathroom contained a clay bath and a "flushing" toilet.

This was the KIng's room built with river views.  The rooms were large with many openings - forimphion  form meaning many doors.

This is the oldest known aqueduct in Europe.  Clay pipes slotted into each other into an extensive water management system.

This is the open air theatral area

adjacent to the oldest known road.

It was then back to the ship and Paul was just back in time to watch a fruit cutting demonstration.

Following lunch, Paul went up on to the open deck to catch some shots of our approach to Santorini.  You can see the various layers of volcanic rock in the mountains and the buildings on top look like snow.

Here are some shots on the island.

This little puppy was defending his turf from two much bigger dogs (labrador size).  They left after he shooed them away, and was just making sure they had gone, which is a bit tricky when you have to look up a hill!!

We drove up to the highest point of the island, and to get down to the port where the ship was waiting, we had two choices. The first option was a donkey, however this was discouraged as it can be perilous. The other option was by cable car. not very good choices if you ask me, however we  went with the cable car with eyes closed on the way down.