On the Road - by Bob Van Leer

Leaving for Greece 28 May 1987 Prison is under construction: Pulp mill possible for Rogue

by Bob Van Leer

(Over Utah – Thursday, May 28, 1987)   Wednesday was an uneventful drive from Gold Beach to Medford with a side trip to Ft Dick to look over start of construction of the new prison of the Redwoods. A lot of it is being moved – this prison is usually under construction.  This is going to have a profound effect on Southwestern Oregon as well as on Northwestern California.

      After checking into our motel, we visited with old friends Jerry and Doris Latham and found from them a new development that could affect the Rogue River.  The City of Medford is considering selling a city-owned tract of land at White City outside of Medford for a pulp mill. The Rogue doesn’t need one of these.  I called Jerry Laussman, Mayor of Medford, but he was not available and left a message and will contact him later.

Amsterdam, 29 May 1987 Ten hours ahead of Gold Beach time

by Bob Van Leer

(Amsterdam, Friday, May 29. 1987)   Betty and I are now at Schiphol Airport, Amsterdam, waiting for the last flight that will finish our trip to Athens.

      Last night at JFK in New York we boarded a KLM (Royal Dutch Airlines) Boeing 747 for a night flight to Amsterdam.  The seating was much more spacious than we are accustomed to.  Our stewardess, Andrea was the picture of what you would expect to find on a Dutch airline, an apple-cheeked blonde.

Athens, 30 May 1987 Visit Greek flea market

by Bob Van Leer

(Athens, Saturday, May 30, 1987)   Today we started the morning with a short briefing on Greek politics and then the day was free.  We spent most of the day visiting the Flea Market area of old Athens in the company of Paul and Marie Creviere of Depere, Wisconsin, whom we met last year on a tour of South Africa.

      The Flea Market area is composed of tiny shops on narrow streets set up for the benefit of tourists.  Tourism, we are informed, dropped 50 percent in 1985 after hijackings and bombings.  It is now coming back, although not yet up to former levels.  This is serious because tourism is the largest income earner here.

Athens, 31 May 1987 Acropolis tour, peace rally highlight , Sunday's activities

by Bob Van Leer

(Athens, May 31, 1987)   We began the day with a tour of Athens centering on a visit to the Acropolis, a limestone plateau in the middle of present day Athens that rises to 500 feet above the surrounding plain.  On it are several of the greatest works of Green architecture.  The hill had been used since the beginning of time for monumental purposes, but the present buildings that give the Acropolis its fame date from the Golden Age of Pericles, about 400 years before the birth of Christ.

      The Parthenon is the largest building on the Acropolis and the finest example of Doric architecture anywhere.  In 2000 years no one has been able to surpass it.  It is a monumental building with columns six feet in diameter and 34 feet high, a building without a straight line.  The architects varied the lines just slightly so they seem to be straight to the eye. 

Athens, 1 June 1987 Greek, Turk relations dominate Greek government topics

by Bob Van Leer

(Athens, June 1, 1987)   Today was devoted to meetings, starting with a representative of the Associated Press at 7 a.m., then to the Greek Foreign Ministry for the rest of the morning and to the American Embassy at noon, winding up with an unscheduled meeting with the mayor of Athens at 8 p.m.

      Greece’s relations with Turkey dominate everything concerned with government. The mistrust of Turkey is almost pathological.  Even at our meeting with the mayor, Turkey was part of the discussion.

Athens, 2 June 1987 Van Leers join in during ND party rally in Greece

by Bob Van Leer

(Athens, June 2, 1987)   The outstanding event of today was the rally of the New Democratic Party (ND) held in Constitution Square in front of our hotel this evening.  The stated time of the rally was 8:30 p.m., but preparations have been underway all week and the crowd began to gather this afternoon.

      This was the largest crowd we have ever seen.  Early estimates were to expect 200,000 to 500,000 and someone will give an estimated figure tomorrow.  There were just an awful lot of people out there.  We watched the crowd assemble from our hotel and then Betty and I went out and mixed with the crowd.  The crowd was extremely well-behaved.  It was just solid people, all happy and enjoying themselves.

Peloponnese, 3 June 1987 Greek politics set aside for day of sightseeing

by Bob Van Leer

(Nafplio, Greece, June 3, 1987)   Today we set aside politics and economics and left on a tour of the Peloponnese (spelled several ways), a peninsula that is the southern part of Greece.  We traveled by bus on a toll way from Athens to our first stop, The Corinth Canal.

      One impression is of the many buildings on which construction was started but never finished.  Our guide says this is because of the Greek passion for building.  Construction stops when money runs out, and starts again when money is available.  This seems a little too simple an explanation, for some of the buildings are large commercial ones.

Olympia, 4 June 1987 Greek roads in mountains are curvy

by Bob Van Leer

(Olympia, Greece, June 4, 1987)   Today we looked at scenery as our bus drove us from Nafplio on the Aegean Sea across the Peloponnese peninsula to the Ionian Sea.

      After leaving the Aegean coastal plain, the pattern was up over a range of mountains and then down to a valley, then up over another range.  The Mountains were up to 3000 feet high and most of the valleys were rather narrow.

Delfi, 5 June 1987 Still excavating at Olympia; streets not built for buses

(Delfi, Greece, June 5, 1987)   We began the day with a tour of the Sacred Precinct at Olympia, dominated by the Temple of Zeus and the site of the original Olympic Games.

      The official start of the games was 776 B.C., although there may have been local games there earlier.  Lists of winners were kept of the games from then until the games were banned by the Roman Emperor Theodosius in 393 A.D., an existence of more than a thousand years.

Athens, 6 June 1987 Apollo's oracle gave prophecies at Sacred Precinct of Delphi

by Bob Van Leer

(Athens, June 6, 1987)   Today we completed our four-day tour of sightseeing and visiting ancient Greek, Roman and Byzantine ruins.

      We began the day with a visit to Delphi (or Delfi), one of the most famous cult sites in Greece.  It was renounced throughout the ancient Greek world and beyond as the sanctuary of Apollo and the seat of his oracle.  The Sacred Precinct of Delphi is dominated by the Temple of Apollo, built on a deep subterranean fissure from which mysterious exhalations originally emanated.