Venice trip January 2005 Part i of ii

Venice and Ravenna prelude: On a boat to Byzantine Italy

(Edited from text originally posted at:
http://5telios.blogspot.com/2005/01/...ine-italy.html)

It all started about the middle of December 2004, when we realised
Korinna would have a full week off after the new year. Usually this is
not the case - schools open in Greece on the feast of St. John.

What to do with a week? We said it would be nice to go to Karpenissi
for some mountainous fun and I started all the planning. It all looked
a little expensive for me - high priced rooms and what have you - so I
met Korinna's suggestion to surprise her with a whole lot of
excitement. I had already gone and looked at costs for going to Venice
and it seemed to be about within the same budget scale as Karpenissi
for a week (what does that tell you about post-Euro prices, huh?). The
idea was to plan this whole thing without her knowing. Not too tough,
as it turns out.

We set off on a cross-Adriatic ferry that bore absolutely no
relationship to the ferries of my memories from childhood drives from
the UK to Greece. The only thing in any way similar to the ferries of
the past are the slot machines - and these are only superficially
similar as the older ones were hand-cranked and not push button
affairs.

The plan was to stay on the Lido for two nights, leaving after the
conclusion of the Befanio Regatta for Ravenna, and to leave there on
the Saturday for Patras again.

While in Venice the plan was to see St. Mark's, possibly the Accademia
and Torcello. Anything else is left up to whatever fate has in store
for our feet and legs.

I had not been in Venice since about 1987, maybe one or two years (but
no more) later. I had not been on a ferry across the Adriatic since
about the same time - although I did cross the straights to Brindisi
in 2001.

Ravenna I was looking forward to - I had never visited and it had
definitely been on my wish lost for a long time. K and I have been
giving the old wish list a good going over these past 6 months...

One thing I'll say about the ferry before I close is that it was far
too hot in the rooms. Far too hot for a fatman in my condition.


Venice - Jan 2005 Part I
(Slightly edited from text originally posted at:
http://5telios.blogspot.com/2005/10/...05-part-i.html which
is where you will find the images, if you are interested)

And so it was that following bookings made at hotels in the Lido and a
little outside Ravenna, and with the Blue Guide to both Venice and
Northern Italy firmly in hand we set off on the evening of 2 January
for Patras in my ageing Fiat Cinquecento. The trip was a surprise.
Korinna did not know where we were going, just that a passport would
be useful. Since we had been before to Ochrid and I travel frequently
to Turkey, there was no way she would guess until well past Corinth
and almost right up to the boat that the destination would be across
the sea to the ungrateful matricide daughter of the Eastern Roman
Empire.

In the end the passports were not needed for the crossing, nor was my
green card for the car requested by anyone. We had 31 hours in the
boat and I spent the time reading up a little on the destination.
Fortunately it is possible to sleep for much of the 31 hours without
having to alter your normal patterns. The boat sets off at about
midnight and arrives at about seven or eight in the morning of the
next day.

The arrival time was planned to be at about seven local time, and I
learned that this is arrival at the entrance to the lagoon, not actual
disembarkation time, so we had an opportunity for breakfast in the
ship's canteen as we entered the lagoon. By the time we were passing
the Doge's palace and St. Zacharia stop, the twilight had become
bright enough to see Venice passing gently before us. They say that
Venice should be approached by sea to appreciate the city - I have no
recollection of approaching it any other way, so I'll just say that
the approach by sea is special enough for me not to want to arrive any
other way if I have the opportunity to go again. They say the same
about Istanbul as well. I will have to wait and see about this.

[image of sculpted capital]
[image of bridge of sighs]
[image of corner of doge's palace]

By the time we had moored, the sun was up and colouring the lagoon and
the city in a golden glow which was increasingly beautiful as we
disembarked and made our way to the ferry service for the Lido. We got
a three day pass, plus a return trip to the Lido for the car and went
back past St. Zacharia and St. Mark's with the sun shining onto them
from the sea. The three day pass allowed great freedom of movement and
a carefree attitude to direction taking - it did not matter to be on
the wrong boat, because not only would we see something unexpected,
but we would not need to pay to come back. It also came out quite
economical as the cost was less than individual trips to the three
outlying islands which we made.

On the Lido, we stayed at the hotel Giardinetto, which is very central
on the Lido, twenty yards or so from the vaporetto stop for St. Mark's
and decently priced. We did not have a view of the lagoon, but some
rooms in the hotel do. We took the car to the Hotel Park, a few km to
the south which has an agreement with the Giardinetto and left the car
there for the next three days. Coming back on the bus - ferry pass is
good for travel on the buses too - we set off straight for St. Mark's
arriving at about ten am. Amazed at this uncharacteristic efficiency
in actually getting from A to B I was pleased that we had a great
number of hours of sunlight left for walking around.

The plan was to see as much of Venice on this first day as possible,
see Torcello on the second day as a day trip, and to see anything else
in Venice which took our fancy on the third day, after watching the
Befana Regatta.

We walked past from the St. Zacharia stop to St. Mark's square, past
the hordes trying to look at the bridge of sighs, which were a little
bit of a turn-off. I very much enjoyed the sculptured capitals on the
columns of the Ducal Palace. They were something unexpected, and I
have no idea when they were carved. Within no time at all, we were
face to face with the tetrarchs, staring out of their new perch in all
their porphyrean glory. It was moving to finally stand next to and
dare I say it, touch this sculpture which was in my Latin books at
school and about which I have read so much since school, and there
they were. We asked a passer-by to take the canonical shot of us
embracing like tetrarchs in front of the tetrarchs, but the passer-by
cropped it in a way which shows that the visual echo was more a duck's
quack than a fully-fledged yodel.

[image of tetrarchs]
[image of tetrarchs plus friends]

Venice Jan 2005 - Part II
(slightly edited version of the text appearing he
http://5telios.blogspot.com/2005/10/...5-part-ii.html which
is where you will find the photos)


We walked around the square to get our bearings and to allow the
admittedly small queue for St. Mark's to become smaller. I was
disappointed by the no-photography rule inside, especially given that
this was one of the reasons I was here. I have photographs of mosaic
work from Sicily, Greece and Turkey where no one forbids it. Now I had
come on what was essentially a mosaic holiday and faced "no
photography" signs. This was a bit down heartening. OK - if I cannot
take pictures, St. Mark's still has one thing to offer me: atmosphere.

St. Mark's is meant to have been constructed on the same size and
plans as the Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople. This was
another of Justinian's exercises in supersizing Constantine's
churches. While we can still see three of Justinian's churches in
Istanbul today, the Church of the Holy Apostles fell into disrepair
and was already in ruins at the time of the fall. It was taken apart
and used as spolia by the Ottomans for their Fatih "Conqueror" mosque.
There are very few churches of this size and floorplan still around,
and now I was getting the opportunity to look inside a church with the
floorplan of the Holy Apostles, and with mosaic decoration, which
should also give an idea of what Justinian's church was like.

On entering, I was struck by the size and spaciousness, but that was
all. What disappointed was the mosaic work. Compared to the works in
Constantinople of the same time, or even of Palermo, what I saw in St.
Marks left me with a feeling that I had been cheated. The hype was
such that when I got there and craned my neck up, I felt unsated. It's
not so much the workmanship on the figures themselves so much as the
programme - there are great empty spaces of gold ground which would
have been so much better filled with vines, tendrils, geometric
shapes, and the like. I was not prepared for so much gold ground and
unimpressed by it when I saw it. No doubt the Frankish knights of the
fourth who came to ask for carriage to Alexandria in the very early
thirteenth century were suitably impressed by this show of gold. I
wouldn't have made a good Frankish knight.

Speaking of which, we visited both the treasury and the Pala d'Oro,
and then the space on the upper floor with the horses and an
exhibition on the history of restoration work. The balcony gives an
impressive view over the square and across to the Lido. The horses
gave mixed emotions, as I wanted to believe that I was in the presence
of a Pheidias original, but the exhibition texts talk of first or
second century creations. We will never know. These horses in front of
me are those same ones which Porphyrius the charioteer and Theodora's
father raced around when they sat on the spina. No doubt some of the
Nika rioters would have died with these horses as the last thing they
saw, while being charged down by the horses of Belissarius' cavalry.
Noise - the statues lived surrounded by noise in the mother of cities,
and now they had the quiet of St. Mark's and the hushed voices of the
passing tourists to keep them company.

[image of in situ horse replica]
[image of St. Mark's exterior showing position of tetrarchs]
[same image of St. Mark's exterior with original brickwork
highlighted]

Leaving the cathedral, we picked up our bags which we had been asked
to leave just off the little square of the lions. We began a
westwardly stroll without any destination in particular, intending to
reach at some point the Rialto Bridge. We passed many art exhibitions
which seemed ridiculously overpriced to us, especially the Turner
whose works one does not pay for in London. I am not sure which way we
went and how we eventually got to the Rialto Bridge, but we ate at a
restaurant near the theater on the way, called al Teatro, which was
decent enough, without being something overwhelmingly special. There
were building works going on nearby which started up with their
pneumatic whatsits soon after we started eating and the staff were
very apologetic, despite it not being their fault at all.
[image of a bridge and a canal]

The Rialto Bridge area was very busy with tourists and locals alike. I
was fascinated by the mareometer on the main vaporetto stop which
barometer-like recorded the height of the sea throughout the day. I
had read about the flooding and read the posters outside St. Zacharia
showing flooded Venice, but since all the days we were there the water
seemed to be quite low, nothing drove it home more than the
mareometer, except perhaps the "moss-line" visible all over the town
about half a yard above the sea level. This is a green line on every
wall in the city above which the wall is normal, and below which grow
mossy sorts of plants which give the impression of the sort of plants
which need to be in water to survive.

[image of the mareometer]

It was here at the Rialto area that I decided to talk to one of the
gondoliers as we were still debating with Korinna whether or not to
take one of the 60 Euro rides.

[image of the casa d'oro facade]

I wanted to find out a bit about the Befana Regatta which ended at the
Rialto - like what time it starts and where a good place to watch
would be. The gondolier was a glum fellow and gave us the information
I asked for grudgingly. I don't know whether this was because he
realized we were not going to ask for a boat trip, or whether it was
his nature to be a glum and grudging source of information about local
customs to tourists. We did not take a gondola ride.

[image of Korinna and the moss-line]

We walked about town after dusk and nightfall and stopped at a caf
which really did seem to be patronized by the locals. They had the
Eraclea Antiqua brand hot chocolate, to which we are both very partial
and we sat reading here until we decided to get on a boat back to the
Lido. We did the Grand Canal by night this time, having walked up a
little distance in the day and returned to the hotel.

We had supper in a pizzeria up the central perpendicular street which
starts at the vaporetto stop. The pizzeria happened to be almost full
of an American school group, but the pizza was good enough.

-part ii coming soon-

On Tue, 04 Sep 2007 13:09:56 -0000, Stelios
wrote:

I really enjoyed your trip report, both the extract in the newsgroup
and the blog.

I thought you might be interested in a bit more information about
Ancona, which is near where I live, especially its Greek connections.
If you already know all this stuff, maybe someone else will be
interested.

In pre-Roman times, Ancona was a Greek settlement founded by emigrants
from Syracuse. It passed into the Roman orbit in the 2nd century BC,
but retained much of its Greek culture. The name Ancona is of Greek
origin. I remember reading somewhere that it derived from the word for
elbow, or maybe it was knee, but in any case, some joint in the body,
and that this name was a decription of the bend in the coastline of
Italy at that point. However, I can't find any authoritive source for
that just now, and instead I see a reference to the Greek word for
angle, again referring to the coastline.

After the fall of the Roman empire, Ancona was part of the Byzantine
Exarchate of Italy, and one of the five cities of the Maritime
Pentapolis (along with Rimini, Pesaro, Fano, and Senigallia). It
passed under the control of the Roman Catholic State in the 8th
century. However, it retained much of its independence and became a
free comune and one of the Maritime Republics of the Mediterranean. It
had many conflicts with Venice, which didn't appreciate any
competition in the Adriatic, and was often supported by the Byzantine
Empire in these conflicts. So Ancona has a long history of Greek
associations. It came definitively under the control of the Pontifical
State in the 16th century.

San Ciriaco is the name of the cathedral; it's in a very beautiful
spot on a promontory overlooking the sea, and is a favorite spot for
making wedding photos.Your trip was in January, so you didn't see it
at its best, which is in the spring. I think the arches are not
Gothic, but Romanesque.





Venice and Ravenna prelude: On a boat to Byzantine Italy

(Edited from text originally posted at:
http://5telios.blogspot.com/2005/01/...ine-italy.html)

It all started about the middle of December 2004, when we realised
Korinna would have a full week off after the new year. Usually this is
not the case - schools open in Greece on the feast of St. John.

What to do with a week? We said it would be nice to go to Karpenissi
for some mountainous fun and I started all the planning. It all looked
a little expensive for me - high priced rooms and what have you - so I
met Korinna's suggestion to surprise her with a whole lot of
excitement. I had already gone and looked at costs for going to Venice
and it seemed to be about within the same budget scale as Karpenissi
for a week (what does that tell you about post-Euro prices, huh?). The
idea was to plan this whole thing without her knowing. Not too tough,
as it turns out.

We set off on a cross-Adriatic ferry that bore absolutely no
relationship to the ferries of my memories from childhood drives from
the UK to Greece. The only thing in any way similar to the ferries of
the past are the slot machines - and these are only superficially
similar as the older ones were hand-cranked and not push button
affairs.

The plan was to stay on the Lido for two nights, leaving after the
conclusion of the Befanio Regatta for Ravenna, and to leave there on
the Saturday for Patras again.

While in Venice the plan was to see St. Mark's, possibly the Accademia
and Torcello. Anything else is left up to whatever fate has in store
for our feet and legs.

I had not been in Venice since about 1987, maybe one or two years (but
no more) later. I had not been on a ferry across the Adriatic since
about the same time - although I did cross the straights to Brindisi
in 2001.

Ravenna I was looking forward to - I had never visited and it had
definitely been on my wish lost for a long time. K and I have been
giving the old wish list a good going over these past 6 months...

One thing I'll say about the ferry before I close is that it was far
too hot in the rooms. Far too hot for a fatman in my condition.


Venice - Jan 2005 Part I
(Slightly edited from text originally posted at:
http://5telios.blogspot.com/2005/10/...05-part-i.html which
is where you will find the images, if you are interested)

And so it was that following bookings made at hotels in the Lido and a
little outside Ravenna, and with the Blue Guide to both Venice and
Northern Italy firmly in hand we set off on the evening of 2 January
for Patras in my ageing Fiat Cinquecento. The trip was a surprise.
Korinna did not know where we were going, just that a passport would
be useful. Since we had been before to Ochrid and I travel frequently
to Turkey, there was no way she would guess until well past Corinth
and almost right up to the boat that the destination would be across
the sea to the ungrateful matricide daughter of the Eastern Roman
Empire.

In the end the passports were not needed for the crossing, nor was my
green card for the car requested by anyone. We had 31 hours in the
boat and I spent the time reading up a little on the destination.
Fortunately it is possible to sleep for much of the 31 hours without
having to alter your normal patterns. The boat sets off at about
midnight and arrives at about seven or eight in the morning of the
next day.

The arrival time was planned to be at about seven local time, and I
learned that this is arrival at the entrance to the lagoon, not actual
disembarkation time, so we had an opportunity for breakfast in the
ship's canteen as we entered the lagoon. By the time we were passing
the Doge's palace and St. Zacharia stop, the twilight had become
bright enough to see Venice passing gently before us. They say that
Venice should be approached by sea to appreciate the city - I have no
recollection of approaching it any other way, so I'll just say that
the approach by sea is special enough for me not to want to arrive any
other way if I have the opportunity to go again. They say the same
about Istanbul as well. I will have to wait and see about this.

[image of sculpted capital]
[image of bridge of sighs]
[image of corner of doge's palace]

By the time we had moored, the sun was up and colouring the lagoon and
the city in a golden glow which was increasingly beautiful as we
disembarked and made our way to the ferry service for the Lido. We got
a three day pass, plus a return trip to the Lido for the car and went
back past St. Zacharia and St. Mark's with the sun shining onto them
from the sea. The three day pass allowed great freedom of movement and
a carefree attitude to direction taking - it did not matter to be on
the wrong boat, because not only would we see something unexpected,
but we would not need to pay to come back. It also came out quite
economical as the cost was less than individual trips to the three
outlying islands which we made.

On the Lido, we stayed at the hotel Giardinetto, which is very central
on the Lido, twenty yards or so from the vaporetto stop for St. Mark's
and decently priced. We did not have a view of the lagoon, but some
rooms in the hotel do. We took the car to the Hotel Park, a few km to
the south which has an agreement with the Giardinetto and left the car
there for the next three days. Coming back on the bus - ferry pass is
good for travel on the buses too - we set off straight for St. Mark's
arriving at about ten am. Amazed at this uncharacteristic efficiency
in actually getting from A to B I was pleased that we had a great
number of hours of sunlight left for walking around.

The plan was to see as much of Venice on this first day as possible,
see Torcello on the second day as a day trip, and to see anything else
in Venice which took our fancy on the third day, after watching the
Befana Regatta.

We walked past from the St. Zacharia stop to St. Mark's square, past
the hordes trying to look at the bridge of sighs, which were a little
bit of a turn-off. I very much enjoyed the sculptured capitals on the
columns of the Ducal Palace. They were something unexpected, and I
have no idea when they were carved. Within no time at all, we were
face to face with the tetrarchs, staring out of their new perch in all
their porphyrean glory. It was moving to finally stand next to and
dare I say it, touch this sculpture which was in my Latin books at
school and about which I have read so much since school, and there
they were. We asked a passer-by to take the canonical shot of us
embracing like tetrarchs in front of the tetrarchs, but the passer-by
cropped it in a way which shows that the visual echo was more a duck's
quack than a fully-fledged yodel.

[image of tetrarchs]
[image of tetrarchs plus friends]

Venice Jan 2005 - Part II
(slightly edited version of the text appearing he
http://5telios.blogspot.com/2005/10/...5-part-ii.html which
is where you will find the photos)


We walked around the square to get our bearings and to allow the
admittedly small queue for St. Mark's to become smaller. I was
disappointed by the no-photography rule inside, especially given that
this was one of the reasons I was here. I have photographs of mosaic
work from Sicily, Greece and Turkey where no one forbids it. Now I had
come on what was essentially a mosaic holiday and faced "no
photography" signs. This was a bit down heartening. OK - if I cannot
take pictures, St. Mark's still has one thing to offer me: atmosphere.

St. Mark's is meant to have been constructed on the same size and
plans as the Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople. This was
another of Justinian's exercises in supersizing Constantine's
churches. While we can still see three of Justinian's churches in
Istanbul today, the Church of the Holy Apostles fell into disrepair
and was already in ruins at the time of the fall. It was taken apart
and used as spolia by the Ottomans for their Fatih "Conqueror" mosque.
There are very few churches of this size and floorplan still around,
and now I was getting the opportunity to look inside a church with the
floorplan of the Holy Apostles, and with mosaic decoration, which
should also give an idea of what Justinian's church was like.

On entering, I was struck by the size and spaciousness, but that was
all. What disappointed was the mosaic work. Compared to the works in
Constantinople of the same time, or even of Palermo, what I saw in St.
Marks left me with a feeling that I had been cheated. The hype was
such that when I got there and craned my neck up, I felt unsated. It's
not so much the workmanship on the figures themselves so much as the
programme - there are great empty spaces of gold ground which would
have been so much better filled with vines, tendrils, geometric
shapes, and the like. I was not prepared for so much gold ground and
unimpressed by it when I saw it. No doubt the Frankish knights of the
fourth who came to ask for carriage to Alexandria in the very early
thirteenth century were suitably impressed by this show of gold. I
wouldn't have made a good Frankish knight.

Speaking of which, we visited both the treasury and the Pala d'Oro,
and then the space on the upper floor with the horses and an
exhibition on the history of restoration work. The balcony gives an
impressive view over the square and across to the Lido. The horses
gave mixed emotions, as I wanted to believe that I was in the presence
of a Pheidias original, but the exhibition texts talk of first or
second century creations. We will never know. These horses in front of
me are those same ones which Porphyrius the charioteer and Theodora's
father raced around when they sat on the spina. No doubt some of the
Nika rioters would have died with these horses as the last thing they
saw, while being charged down by the horses of Belissarius' cavalry.
Noise - the statues lived surrounded by noise in the mother of cities,
and now they had the quiet of St. Mark's and the hushed voices of the
passing tourists to keep them company.

[image of in situ horse replica]
[image of St. Mark's exterior showing position of tetrarchs]
[same image of St. Mark's exterior with original brickwork
highlighted]

Leaving the cathedral, we picked up our bags which we had been asked
to leave just off the little square of the lions. We began a
westwardly stroll without any destination in particular, intending to
reach at some point the Rialto Bridge. We passed many art exhibitions
which seemed ridiculously overpriced to us, especially the Turner
whose works one does not pay for in London. I am not sure which way we
went and how we eventually got to the Rialto Bridge, but we ate at a
restaurant near the theater on the way, called al Teatro, which was
decent enough, without being something overwhelmingly special. There
were building works going on nearby which started up with their
pneumatic whatsits soon after we started eating and the staff were
very apologetic, despite it not being their fault at all.
[image of a bridge and a canal]

The Rialto Bridge area was very busy with tourists and locals alike. I
was fascinated by the mareometer on the main vaporetto stop which
barometer-like recorded the height of the sea throughout the day. I
had read about the flooding and read the posters outside St. Zacharia
showing flooded Venice, but since all the days we were there the water
seemed to be quite low, nothing drove it home more than the
mareometer, except perhaps the "moss-line" visible all over the town
about half a yard above the sea level. This is a green line on every
wall in the city above which the wall is normal, and below which grow
mossy sorts of plants which give the impression of the sort of plants
which need to be in water to survive.

[image of the mareometer]

It was here at the Rialto area that I decided to talk to one of the
gondoliers as we were still debating with Korinna whether or not to
take one of the 60 Euro rides.

[image of the casa d'oro facade]

I wanted to find out a bit about the Befana Regatta which ended at the
Rialto - like what time it starts and where a good place to watch
would be. The gondolier was a glum fellow and gave us the information
I asked for grudgingly. I don't know whether this was because he
realized we were not going to ask for a boat trip, or whether it was
his nature to be a glum and grudging source of information about local
customs to tourists. We did not take a gondola ride.

[image of Korinna and the moss-line]

We walked about town after dusk and nightfall and stopped at a caf
which really did seem to be patronized by the locals. They had the
Eraclea Antiqua brand hot chocolate, to which we are both very partial
and we sat reading here until we decided to get on a boat back to the
Lido. We did the Grand Canal by night this time, having walked up a
little distance in the day and returned to the hotel.

We had supper in a pizzeria up the central perpendicular street which
starts at the vaporetto stop. The pizzeria happened to be almost full
of an American school group, but the pizza was good enough.

-part ii coming soon-

--
Barbara Vaughan
My email address is my first initial followed by my surname at libero dot it
I answer travel questions only in the newsgroup

On Sep 5, 12:40 am, B wrote:
On Tue, 04 Sep 2007 13:09:56 -0000, Stelios

wrote:

I really enjoyed your trip report, both the extract in the newsgroup
and the blog.

I thought you might be interested in a bit more information about
Ancona, which is near where I live, especially its Greek connections.


Thanks for your kind words and extra information on Ancona - Like I
said, it had always been a harbour town, much like Patras or
Igoumenitsa - get in fast, get out fast, so the five hour delay to our
departure was perfect to get to see a little more of the city, and
this was well worth it.

Stelios

On Tue, 04 Sep 2007 23:58:37 +0200, Martin wrote:

On Tue, 04 Sep 2007 23:40:57 +0200, B wrote:

... The name Ancona is of Greek
origin. I remember reading somewhere that it derived from the word for
elbow, or maybe it was knee, but in any case, some joint in the body,
and that this name was a decription of the bend in the coastline of
Italy at that point. However, I can't find any authoritive source for
that just now,

http://ancienthistory.about.com/libr...ico_indexA.htm

"Anc[=o]na, Ancona, a city of Italy, on the coast of Pisenum. It is supposed to
derive its name from the Greek word [Greek: agkon], an angle or elbow, on
account of the angular form of the promontory on which it is built."

So it's the same word, angle or elbow.
--
Barbara Vaughan
My email address is my first initial followed by my surname at libero dot it
I answer travel questions only in the newsgroup

On Sep 5, 1:18 pm, B wrote:
On Tue, 04 Sep 2007 23:58:37 +0200, Martin wrote:
On Tue, 04 Sep 2007 23:40:57 +0200, B wrote:

... The name Ancona is of Greek
origin. I remember reading somewhere that it derived from the word for
elbow, or maybe it was knee, but in any case, some joint in the body,
and that this name was a decription of the bend in the coastline of
Italy at that point. However, I can't find any authoritive source for
that just now,

http://ancienthistory.about.com/libr...ar_bellogallic...

"Anc[=o]na, Ancona, a city of Italy, on the coast of Pisenum. It is supposed to
derive its name from the Greek word [Greek: agkon], an angle or elbow, on
account of the angular form of the promontory on which it is built."

So it's the same word, angle or elbow.

I wouldn't think so. I have the intermediate Liddell and Scott at
home, I can check.

Stelios

On Wed, 05 Sep 2007 10:28:40 -0000, Stelios
wrote:

On Sep 5, 1:18 pm, B wrote:
On Tue, 04 Sep 2007 23:58:37 +0200, Martin wrote:
On Tue, 04 Sep 2007 23:40:57 +0200, B wrote:

... The name Ancona is of Greek
origin. I remember reading somewhere that it derived from the word for
elbow, or maybe it was knee, but in any case, some joint in the body,
and that this name was a decription of the bend in the coastline of
Italy at that point. However, I can't find any authoritive source for
that just now,

http://ancienthistory.about.com/libr...ar_bellogallic...

"Anc[=o]na, Ancona, a city of Italy, on the coast of Pisenum. It is supposed to
derive its name from the Greek word [Greek: agkon], an angle or elbow, on
account of the angular form of the promontory on which it is built."

So it's the same word, angle or elbow.

I wouldn't think so. I have the intermediate Liddell and Scott at
home, I can check.

Please report back; I'm curious.
--
Barbara Vaughan
My email address is my first initial followed by my surname at libero dot it
I answer travel questions only in the newsgroup

On Sep 5, 3:30 pm, Magda wrote:

Ask Stelios if you don't believe me, dammit.

I opened my Intermediate Liddel and Scott, not having a bigger
dictionary.

agko^n else agkwn depending on your transliteration (alpha gamma kappa
omega nu), attested from Homer onwards with meaning elbow in both
Iliad and Odyssey (and beyond). With meaning "angle or corner" (eg
external corner of a house) in the Iliad. With meaning bend (of a
river) in Herodotus (although I would imagine if today we talked of a
river having an elbow there would be no need to explain the
metaphor).

In modern Greek we have agko^nas / agkwnas for elbow and agko^ne^ /
agkwnh for corner, bend.

Stelios

On Fri, 07 Sep 2007 07:33:09 -0000, Stelios
wrote:

On Sep 5, 3:30 pm, Magda wrote:

Ask Stelios if you don't believe me, dammit.

I opened my Intermediate Liddel and Scott, not having a bigger
dictionary.

agko^n else agkwn depending on your transliteration (alpha gamma kappa
omega nu), attested from Homer onwards with meaning elbow in both
Iliad and Odyssey (and beyond). With meaning "angle or corner" (eg
external corner of a house) in the Iliad. With meaning bend (of a
river) in Herodotus (although I would imagine if today we talked of a
river having an elbow there would be no need to explain the
metaphor).

In modern Greek we have agko^nas / agkwnas for elbow and agko^ne^ /
agkwnh for corner, bend.

Stelios

--
Barbara Vaughan
My email address is my first initial followed by my surname at libero dot it
I answer travel questions only in the newsgroup

On Fri, 07 Sep 2007 07:33:09 -0000, Stelios
wrote:

agko^n else agkwn depending on your transliteration (alpha gamma kappa
omega nu), attested from Homer onwards with meaning elbow in both
Iliad and Odyssey (and beyond). With meaning "angle or corner" (eg
external corner of a house) in the Iliad. With meaning bend (of a
river) in Herodotus (although I would imagine if today we talked of a
river having an elbow there would be no need to explain the
metaphor).

In modern Greek we have agko^nas / agkwnas for elbow and agko^ne^ /
agkwnh for corner, bend.

Thanks for satisfying my curiosity, Stelios!
--
Barbara Vaughan
My email address is my first initial followed by my surname at libero dot it
I answer travel questions only in the newsgroup