The John P Metal Art Blog

After spending time in Athens and Thessaloniki we were ready for some Greek Island action. First stop - Rhodes.

This ancient island is characterized by the excellent condition of the ruins left from the Middle Ages all the way back to the time before Christ. There is plenty to see and do on Rhodes, but this not exactly the island for lounging on beaches.

The most important historical feature of the island is a perfectly preserved Castle and medieval city known as “Old Town”. People have been living and working here for centuries.

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After spending time in Athens, we traveled to Thessaloniki, or Thessalonica, or Salonica as the natives call it, to visit with relatives and spend time in Greece’s second largest city. Although Athens has some really cool stuff, Salonica is a much nicer city. At about one quarter the size, it’s still big enough to find about anything you want, yet it seems much cleaner, a little more modern, and a bit safer.

Everywhere you go in Greece they have built buildings on top of buildings for centuries, but Thessalonica has some places where you can really get a feel for what that means. In some places archeologists dig up nearly complete structures and you can see how much farther down the ground was a couple of thousand years ago.

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Our big annual trip this year is to Greece, and our first stop on the tour is Athens. Here are a few of the highlights.

There are a few “must do” things when anyone visits Athens. Right at the top of the list is a visit to the Acropolis, one of the seven wonders of the world. I don’t think it’s possible for anyone to visit this site without wondering how in the heck they even got the giant stones to the top of this hill, much less built huge structures up there. It was very cool, and here are a few obligatory photos.

First, the Parthenon as shot from the front right corner.

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The Arrow of Light is the top honor awarded in the Cub Scouts to those young men who are preparing to continue on to the ranks of Boy Scouting. Not all young scouts are worthy of such an honor, but those who are traditionally receive a specially prepared Arrow of Light, consisting of a straight and true arrow with color bands that correspond to awards achieved in scouting.

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They’re a little late but this is one of my more recent creations - a Valentine’s day gift.

Each of the hearts was hand-cut from stainless steel and welded onto a steel stem. The faces of the hearts were then ground to a fine finish and the steel stems were creatively braided together.