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- Emotions were strong. We must now recover. We had the idea to get on a small boat to moor on a mythical and wonderful island.

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- Rhodes. Rodon in Greek, meaning rose, the most beautiful and fragrant flower.

- When Zeus and the immortals split the Earth, Rhodes was not yet visible in the middle of the sea, Pindaro tells us.

- It is only the Sun God who managed getting a glimpse at it and he wanted it for himself, though he asked the people of Rhodes to be worshipped with his sister Athena.

- To honor the goddess, the population erected a votive temple, still visible today over Lindos Acropolis.

- As a gratitude, Zeus’ daughter gave an even more precious present in return:

- she donated the sculpting art to the people of Rhodes, that historically had its most famous school on this island.

- To the 3 sculpters of Rhodes, Agesandro, Atenodoro and Polidoro, we owe the Laoconte Group, now preserved in the Vatican Museum.

- An insuperable master piece of art of classic art.

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- The people of Rhodes were also the authors of Milo’s Venus and of Samothrace’s Nike, but the most significant of Athena’s gifts surely was the famous Colossus of Rhodes,

- the largest representation of the Sun God that was ever made, erected between 304 and 292 BC.

- 31 meter-high, 1 of the 7 wonders of the ancient world.

- Dario del Corno, one of greatest specialists of Greek culture, defines the Colossus as the precursor to the Statue of Liberty.

- Such as this latter, the Colossus welcomes the ships at the entrance of the town harbor and, like the monument on Staten Island,

- it recalled that moment when the population freed themselves from its oppressing forces, in the case of Rhodes, from tyran Demetrios.

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- In 332 BC, the island self proclaims its independence and from then on, the history of Rhodes gets far away from that of Athens.

- When you walk in the medieval citadell of the old Acropolis, you get the impression you are somewhere elsee, not in Greece, at least not in which we are used to.

- 4 kilometers of bastions, up to 12 meter-thick, surround the Colacchio, the old city.

- That’s the splendid military city wanted by the Templers, an untouched corner of the Early Middle Ages, the best kept in Europe.

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- The Greece we know is to be found in Lindos, the most beautiful village of Rhodes,

- alike many villages of the Cyclades, who had million of people in love with Greece.

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- We must now say goodbye. We will be back on Sunday, May 17th, with a new trip and a new adventure.

- Until then, if you wish to go on traveling with us, you can go to our website www.stelladelsud.rai.it.

- You can have fun with « Stella del Sud » travelling around the world.

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