Google Sightseeing » Greece

Mediterranean Sky in Siesta

Evan Brammer — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 12:34:06 +0000

There seems to be a phenomenon occurring all around the world: Giant ships have been sneaking quietly out of the shipyard, going just out the sight of their owners, turning onto their sides and taking a little siesta.

The Mediterranean Sky has been resting off the coast of Greece since early in 2003. We’re not sure if and when she’ll be returning to work, as most of her hull has rusted through.

However, the fact that her lifeboats are still intact (not salvaged as one would suspect) could mean that she is just waiting for someone to come and rouse her from her slumber. There’s a rumor going around that this old girl had some financial problems back in 1997. – Perhaps that is the reason she’s being all lazy, lying around doing nothing?

We’ve seen this sort of reckless abandonment before, so we know this little nap taker isn’t an isolated issue. See for yourself the beginnings of an international problem! What would happen if any old ship just decided to lay up in the shallows? Catastrophe!

To further investigate this crisis of sleeping/deep sleeping ships, check out some of our previous coverage: Shipwreck, Key Largo, More Shipwrecks, Iraqi Shipwrecks, Shipwreck! and Saharan Shipwrecks.

Update: RobK points out another sleeping beauty, this time its the World Discoverer in the Solomon Islands.

Can you find any more? Post the link in the comments and we’ll see how many of these dosing giants we can find!

Locations: Greece / Categories: Abandoned, Watercraft

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Corinth Canal

Alex Turnbull — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 13:08:59 +0000

Following on from yesterday’s Rio-Antirio Bridge, right at the very end of the Gulf of Corinth is the Corinth Canal, a 6.3 kilometre long canal which technically turned the Peloponnesian peninsula into an island upon its completion in 1893. Although the canal is only 21 metres wide it’s considered a great technical achievement for its time, and saves small ships the 400 km long journey around the Peloponnesus.

At each end of the canal there are unique submersible bridges which can be lowered to the bottom of the canal to allow the boats to get past! Very cool. You can see a sequence of photos showing the bridge in action on the Wikipedia page.

Locations: Greece / Categories: Bridges, Islands, Structures, Watercraft

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The Rio-Antirio Bridge

Alex Turnbull — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 18:30:11 +0000

Inspired by some posters I’ve seen recently advertising a rival mapping service, here’s the Rio-Antirio bridge which spans the Gulf of Corinth in Greece, which has the world’s longest cable-stayed suspended deck. It was completed in 2004 but is still under construction in these images. (Update: Turns out the bridge in the poster is actually the Vasco da Gama bridge in Lisbon, whoops! Thanks Geoff.)

Due to the movement of tectonic plates, the distance between land here is increasing at a rate of 30 mm per year. To accomodate this, the piers of the bridge are designed to slide, accomodating any expansion of the Gulf within the bridge’s lifetime.

There’s more at the WIkipedia page and at the official site, neither of which seem to be able to decide how to spell Rio[n]-Antir[r]io[n].

Thanks to Abigail Brady, Will, Bertrand Capo, dustin, Igor and Pille.

Locations: Greece / Categories: Bridges

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The Simian Messiah

Alex Turnbull — Wed, 10 May 2006 13:14:10 +0000

The simian messiah has been found! Twice! All hail our mighty primate overlords.

Thanks to Sebastian ‘BuzzDee’ and Cecco.

Locations: California, Greece / Categories: Weirdness

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Ancient Greece

Alex Turnbull — Wed, 03 Aug 2005 19:13:44 +0000

This is the Acropolis in Athens, Greece. The Acroplois has an incredibly ancient history (described in some detail over at Wikipedia), but today it is best known for the most famous surviving building of Ancient Greece, the Parthenon (which is shown in our thumbnail). The Parthenon has stood here for nearly 2,500 years (Wikipedia page), and there’s lots of other ancient sights at here too, so here’s a map of the area in the the time of Socrates and Plato to compare with.

Here in Edinburgh we’ve got the National Monument, a copy of the Parthenon which was unfortunately never finished (supposedly due to a lack of funds), and is known locally as Edinburgh’s Disgrace (Wikipedia page). There’s no high-res of it yet, but I bet you’ll all be glad to hear that I can see it from my bedroom window

There’s another (way more impressive) copy in Centennial Park, Nashville, but again no high-res I’m afraid

Back to ancient Greece, and just east of the Acropolis you can still see the remaining columns of the Temple Of Olympian Zeus (Wikipedia page).

Thanks to… deep breath… Jean Lorraine, Chris Jernigan, Adam Parker, Bltiz, Matt, ray hollis, Martin Willey, Jim L., Ron Vogel, Roland, Stephen Train, Ruben Vermeersch, Salinga, Sig, Matt, GS, Evan O., Bennet Langlotz, Gut, Ellen van Swieten, Greg Askins, Ian, Ken Arnold, Feng Wu, banic, Boniface, martin e, Serge Lyubomudrov, noknok, Richard Cobbe, Scott Kleihege, Fai Sheng and cacafuego.

Locations: Greece, Scotland, Tennessee / Categories: Buildings

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Ship Graveyard

Alex Turnbull — Fri, 15 Jul 2005 15:30:09 +0000

Update: Turns out that this is actually just an image glitch, thanks to everyone who helped clear that up. Still cool though

Check out this fantastic image of half-sunk ships in Greece. Spooky!

Props to Mike for this little beauty

Locations: Greece / Categories: Watercraft, Weirdness

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Athens Olympic Sports Complex

James Turnbull — Sat, 25 Jun 2005 02:03:07 +0000

Here is the sports complex used for the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens. Most of the venues were still under construction at the time of the photo, but you can still see the various sections.

Starting from the west is the Olympic Velodrome (with photo-stitching error) which was used for the track cycling. To the east are the open air swimming pools (of which only one is filled). Then we get the Olympic Indoor Hall before the Olympic Stadium, with the two parts of the roof lying to either side. North east are the sixteen tennis courts.

For comparison a more recent satellite photo is available on Wikipedia.

Thanks: Bill Kendrick, Jean Lorraine, Chris Jernigan, Anne Mathews, Marc Armstrong, Tim, Freddie, Terry Foster, Jim L., Daniel Jibouleau, Michael Davis

Locations: Greece / Categories: Stadiums and Sport

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