CORINTH CANAL: SHORT CUT TOOK A LITTLE TIME

david ellis

HOODWINKING those whose support they need to keep them in power has been around since the politicians first breathed air. 

Way back in 67AD when Emperor Nero sensed wealthy traders and shipowners were getting a bit toey, he made a grand promise with a flair of showmanship that would leave pollies of today floundering.

The fact that fulfilment of that promise would not come about until hundreds of years later – in 1893 – was neither here nor there.

From as early as 700BC, Mediterranean traders cursed an area of Greece known as the Peloponnese, a peninsula in the south of the country's mainland that divided the Adriatic Sea from the Agean.

For while the 16,000 square kilometre peninsula was one of the country's richest and most valuable agricultural areas, it added 300kms – and often days sailing around the infamously unpredictable Cape Maleas – to the lucrative trade routes between the two Seas.

Many early rulers thought about digging a canal across the peninsula, but none was quite game enough to try it, for two reasons: they believed that Poseidon, the God of the Sea, opposed the joining of the two Seas, and if they dug the canal, Poseidon would allow the "higher" Adriatic to rush through like water down a plug-hole, and flood the "lower" Aegean.

Periander, the Tyrant of Corinth, in 602BC temporarily got around the problem with a stone roadway, having ships hauled out of the Adriatic or Agean, placed on wheeled carts and pulled by horses and slaves across the 6km- wide peninsula.

Because of their weight, cargoes were removed and carried separately, and the ships re-loaded and re-launched into the sea on the other side of the Peloponnese. It ended-up as time-consuming and costly as sailing around the Peninsula.

So in 67AD Emperor Nero, with those traders and shipowners making clamouring sounds about his leadership, decided on a grand canal across the Peloponnese Peninsula.

But he didn't announce it with just a simple court statement and the equivalent of today's Press Release. Rather he waited for the approaching Isthmian Games when he knew he would have an audience of thousands – including his business protagonists.

The Games were held both in the year before and the year after the Olympics, and with a massive audience Nero not only declared that he would have a canal cut across the Peloponnese Peninsula – with great ceremony he produced a golden spade, led his noblemen and business moguls to the site of his would-be canal, and dug the first sods of soil himself.

And not content with that, he then loaded this spoil into wicker baskets which he carried on his back and dumped with equal ceremony before no less than 6,000 slaves he'd recruited to dig the canal.

But that was as far as it got: although his plans were for a canal 6.3km long, 25m wide and with an 8m depth of water, it also meant first creating a cutting up to 80m deep just to get down to the water-level of what would be his actual canal.

And to complicate matters, 3-months later Nero – whose increasingly-odd behaviour included giving 3-hour performances on his lyre to audiences in theatres whose doors were locked so no-one could leave before he'd finished –  committed suicide. What little work was done on the canal was abandoned.

It took centuries for the Greek government to get serious again, and finally in 1890 construction began on a canal at a place called the Isthmus of Corinth.

It took three years, including building two road bridges and a rail bridge across the canal, and remarkably at each end, roads on pontoons that "sank" into trenches dug a further several metres into the bed of the canal to allow ships to pass over them.

Today the narrow and shallow Corinth Canal is still a vital link for smaller cargo vessels, boutique-sized cruise ships and pleasure boats seeking a short-cut between the Adriatic and Agean Seas.

The Peloponnese Peninsula is a taste of true Greece, with aqua-blue waters lapping sunny beaches, patchworks of olive groves, vineyards and citrus orchards, ancient towns, monasteries, palaces, ruined castles and forts.

For information about holidaying on the Peloponnese phone Travel Creations 1300 550 727… they know all about it as the owner's family hails from there!

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PHOTO CAPTIONS:
 

[] TIGHT fit: only boutique cruise ships like SeaDream I and SeaDream II here can squeeze through the 25m wide Corinth Canal.

[] ROAD and rail bridges cross the Canal at various points of its 6.3km length.

[] AERIAL view showing how the Canal dissects the Isthmus of Corinth.

[] NOW you see it, now you don't… low-level road bridge "sinks" into the canal to allow ships in and out of the Canal

Struth! Mind the Ferrari Please

IN his continuing search for the more weird, whacky and wondrous in the world of travel, David Ellis says staff at England's Premier Inn accommodation group have collated some of their more unusual requests from guests – including one staffer being asked to sit in a guest's Ferrari sports car while he had dinner to ensure it wouldn't be stolen, and another being asked to propose to a young lady on behalf of a bloke who was too nervous to do it himself.

Other bizarre requests include a front desk manager lending his trousers to a guest who didn't have any appropriate strides for a sudden important business meeting, lining up a dating service for a shy guest, buying a rubber duck for a guest to play with in their bath, and a female staffer being asked to go out and buy a very specific style and colour bridesmaid's dress for a distraught guest who'd torn their's trying to get it on.

Another guest rang the front desk of one Premier Inn and asked if they knew the name "of a good local undertaker," while another who was suddenly taken to hospital rang their hotel and asked them to send around a plate of their fish and chips because the hospital food was so bad.

And finally there was the overseas guest who wanted to know if it was "possible in England to buy a rhinoceros for a friend's birthday?"

SPOOKY ENCOUNTERS WITH SPIRITED LOVERS

david ellis

WHEN a romantic English lady named Maude nibbled at her lover's ear that his passion "had her aflame," little did she realise just how prophetic her words were to be.

For Maude, a lady who had lived a somewhat sheltered life, had not plotted her one and only tryst too carefully at all.

Still quite attractive even though some years had passed since her youth, Maude had never expected to be swept off her feet as she was by a Romeo who was also of mature years, and coincidentally ready for his first fling too.

But sadly for them in England's 11th century, ladies – irrespective of their age – were expected to go through ritualistic courtships, and to tie the knot before becoming involved in too much heavy breathing.

However Maude and her lover were in no position to walk the aisle – and when sprung in a somewhat erotic encounter they had the book thrown at them.

To begin with, Maude was a nun.  Secondly, her lover was a monk.  And thirdly to make matters worse, they were caught in the act in what should have been a very celibate cell in a monastery in Oxfordshire.

Maude's chauvinistic all-male peers handed out quick punishment. She was burnt at the stake, while her lover got the better option of being merely banished to the outside world.

But Maude, as the flames licked around her, vowed to return to him after death. And return she did.

Over the centuries the old monastery has changed hands numerous times, and today is the grand Weston Manor country hotel. And 900 years after her death guests have sworn to hearing sounds of light footsteps in one particular, and otherwise empty, corridor – the very one that Maude once tippy-toed along to meet her lover.

And staff say they have heard a light woman's steps behind them in the same corridor in the dead of night… yet when they've turned around, the corridor has been empty but for themselves.

Weston Manor is not England's only hotel serving as something of a memorial to the love-lorn. At the George and Dragon in West Wycombe (Buckinghamshire) the sobs of a young serving maiden murdered 200 years ago are still said to be heard in one room today.

According to legend, some local lads were peeved at the flighty young lady sharing her affection with not one of their own, but a commercial traveller who regularly stayed at the George and Dragon. So one night they waylaid the two and beat her senseless before the traveller managed to get her to his room, in which she died soon after.

Vowing like Maude to return to live with her lover forever after, guests today have told of hearing a woman's sobs in an upstairs bedroom that staff assure is unoccupied… the very room in which the young maiden died all those years ago.

And a philandering farmer's mistress has left her sad memory at the Lion Hotel in Nyetimber in Sussex. The hotel includes three small cottages that were built back in 1407, and were used to store smuggled whisky and brandy that was slipped in through a 1200-metre long tunnel from the coast.

As well as helping himself to the illegal odd nip or three, the farmer found the tunnel a useful place for also slipping into the arms of a local wench of his own lustful persuasion. Unfortunately his wife one night followed him into the tunnel, and discovering what he was up to, dealt his mistress a stunning right hook.

She was carried semi-conscious to either room 5 or 6 on the hotel's ground floor, and swore along the way that she would return to her lover as soon as she recovered. This so further enraged the farmer's wife that she dealt another savage – and this time mortal – whack.

The departed mistress was buried in her best blue silk dress, and today guests at the Lion have reported seeing a "blue apparition" in those two rooms.

One even signed a statutory declaration that he had been awakened in Room 5 "by a lady dressed in blue standing before me, then she disappeared right through the wall with no other sound than the rustling of her blue silk dress."

Even Maude couldn't top that.


PHOTO CAPTIONS:

[] WESTON Manor, Oxfordshire: spirited encounters in more ways than one.

[] DID Maude and her equally ill-fated lover once tread this peaceful Oxfordshire retreat?

Fiji continues strong start to 2010

-          Australian figures for February increase by 24.8 per cent 

-          International figures up by 11.5 per cent

24 March 2010 – Topping off a strong January performance Tourism Fiji visitor arrival statistics released this week show Australian visitor arrivals for February have again increased substantially.

A total of 12,777 Australians visited Fiji in February, a 24.8 per cent increase over the 10,239 figure recorded for the same period in 2009.

Tourism Fiji regional director Australia Paresh Pant said the destination's ongoing success from this market could be attributed to an intensive east coast TV advertising blitz launched in mid-January offering a range of all inclusive holiday deals.

The strong Australian result helped take Fiji's international visitor tally to 35,010 for February, an 11.5 per cent increase over the 31,386 achieved for the same period in 2009 with most of the destination's key source markets showing positive growth.

This includes a 20.9 per cent increase from the New Zealand market.

The national tourist office also recorded strong results from several emerging Asian markets where its strong promotional efforts in recent months are beginning to pay off.

While base figures remain relatively small from China, Taiwan and South Korea, respective visitor arrivals increases of 111.2 per cent, 92 per cent and 44.3 per cent demonstrate strong potential for Fiji from all three markets.

Released by Tourism Fiji 

Visit: www.fijime.com

Struth! In the Lake of Luxury

STRUTH !

IN his continuing search for the more weird, whacky and wondrous in the world of travel, David Ellis says if you reckon you deserve a bit of regal service on that next holiday, book yourself into the Taj Lake Palace at Udaipur in the state of Rajasthan in Western India, and play at being one of the country's maharajahs of old.

This hotel occupies the entire one-time palace of Rajasthan's maharanas (known as maharajahs in other parts of India,) being built in 1746 by Maharana Jagat Singh II, and occupying all of a 1.6ha (4-acre) island in the middle of Lake Pichola.

You'll have a choice of Luxury Rooms, Palace Rooms or Royal Suites – with Royal Butlers who are descendants of the original palace retainers on hand to ensure your every creature comfort.

And while it's got all mod-cons for today's tourist from world-class local and international dining to a spa that features ancient Indian techniques, its old-world ambience and privileged lifestyle is enhanced all the more when you call for some transport to get you into town: after a short boat ride to the jetty, you can have a vintage or classic car take you shopping or sightseeing.

If you want to know more, hop onto www.tajhotels.com

COUPLE OF TARTS ALMOST CAUSE FOR DIVORCE

david ellis

IN the absence of my wife who was attempting to wreak as much havoc as possible to her credit card in the shortest time available, a travel-writing colleague and myself made the near-fatal decision of asking our Lisbon hotel barman where we could find a couple of local tarts – and if it would be okay to bring them back to the bar.

So on enquiring of our possible whereabouts on her return, my wife was told that "Mr Ellis and Mr Andrews asked where to find tarts, and I told them to go to Belem down on the waterfront," the helpful barman told her. "The tarts there are Portugal's best."

And thus on our return soon after, I was invited to 'fess up very quickly – after 46 years of marriage – as to just what we two had been up to.

Fortuitously we were saved by the evidence we still carried in a box: not two, but a half dozen of Lisbon's famous Belem Tarts, sweet and more-ish little custard pastries that are considered somewhat of a Portuguese national treasure.

When discussion turns to the finest of the world's more-sugary creations, Portugal seldom springs to front of mind, thus on our recent travel-writing mission there we decided that rather than do the usual round of ancient buildings, Malcolm (who writes and talks about travel on radio in Port Macquarie) and I decided to go in search instead of the tart that had put a town on the map.

We found Belem itself no longer a town, having been absorbed many years ago into Lisbon's urban sprawl, and that it's Pasteis de Belem is the best-known patisserie not just here, but in the whole of Lisbon and Portugal.

The story of today's Belem Tart goes back to 1837, although its origins lay   centuries before that in the nearby Mosteiro dos Jeronimos (the Jeronimos Monastery.)

It seems that in days of yore, nuns used huge amounts of egg whites to, somewhat strangely, stiffen their habits, and to also remove cloudiness from monastery-made wines, leaving them with great quantities of egg yolks to find a use for.

Many imaginative dishes were thought up at the Jeronimos Monastery, one being a small baked puff-pastry tart with a custard filling of crème brulee-like consistency. But the Monastery and others were closed during the liberal revolution of the 1800s, putting an end to the making of the tarts.

However on also finding himself suddenly out of work, an enterprising lay baker at the monastery and who knew the tart's recipe, Domingo Rafael Alves bought a small shop nearby and began making the tarts there to considerable success amongst the locals.

Today that same shop is now the Pasteis de Belem and is run by the Clarinha family who are descendants of Domingo Alves – and of these, only three know the recipe of the filling for the Belem Tart, each day meeting in a locked kitchen to make the egg custard mix.

Whatever it is it's been drawing locals and tourists to the shop for nearly two centuries, with around 18,000 of the little tarts with their caramelised tops sold each day.

Customers can queue for an hour or more if they want to take tarts and drinks at the patisserie with its yesteryear blue tile walls, but take-away service is quicker. And if you see tour coaches outside, do yourself a favour and have a look at the Jeronimos Monastery nearby until the mobs have gone – the beautiful old building is the resting place of many of Portugal's kings, queens and the explorer Vasco da Gama.  

As good scribes we tried out best to discover the secret of the Belem Tart recipe, even tracking down a waiter who has worked at the patisserie for nearly 40 years, but who pleaded total ignorance.

We did learn from others, however, that the pastry and custard are made during the day and rested overnight – and then baked for 30-minutes at a furnace-like 400-degress Celsius. 

And while we'd expect the custard filling would comprise the usual milk, cream, egg yolks, caster sugar, plain flour, cinnamon, probably lemon peel and vanilla extract, just what the secret ingredient that sets those of Belem apart from the rest will remain just that.

A secret.

 

PHOTO CAPTIONS:

[] NATIONAL treasure: Lisbon's famous Belem Tarts – the caramelised top comes from being baked at a furnace-like 400C.

[] QUEUEING-up is a daily ritual outside the Pasteis de Belem that opened in 1837 and sells 18,000 Belem Tarts a day.

STRUTH - Bumped by the Queen

STRUTH !

IN his continuing search for the more weird, whacky and wondrous in the world of travel, David Ellis says that 90-something holidaymakers booked on the boutique 5-star British cruise ship Hebridean Princess in July have been told to take their holiday somewhere else – because the Queen wants the ship for a getaway with the Royal Family.

Hebridean Princess that boasts "outstanding service, fine cuisine, unusually spacious cabins for just 49-guests, and some of the most elegant public rooms afloat," will take the Queen and her family out of Scrabster on Scotland's far north coast for a week's cruise through the country's northern islands, followed by a week down the Scottish west coast.

They'll visit such delightfully-named places as Muckle Flugga, Unst, the Vat of Kirbister, Cape Wrath, Tanera Mor, Rum and the Isle of Muck – with escorted shore excursions for those who want, although we think they'll most-likely pass-up on one to the Castle of Mey: it was the home of the late Queen Mum.

The Queen is reportedly paying around $600,000 for her little family jaunt, and operators of the Hebridean Princess say those other guests whose holidays were cancelled to make way for the royals, "are being generously compensated and offered other dates."

LANGKAWI’S BEAUTY IS WRONGED BRIDE’S HERITAGE

david ellis

WHEN a spiteful village hag on the Malaysian island of Langkawi maliciously spread the rumour that a beautiful young bride had been unfaithful to her new husband, she knew that if found guilty by the village elders it would mean the death penalty for the young beauty.

And when those elders did ultimately order that the young bride, Mahsuri die by a blade plunged into her back, she beseeched the gods to wreak havoc on her island for seven generations in revenge for her wrongful death.

And wreak havoc they did.

Within day's of Mahsuri's death tidal waves swept away coastal villages and fishing ports, floods drowned crops, torrential rains collapsed mountain sides onto villages and gardens, then drought withered the ground and fishing boats sank unaccountably at their moorings.

And raiding Siamese warriors plundered already depleted villages of their few remaining valuables.

Then miraculously at the end of seven generations the havoc abated, and so that Mahsuri's beauty and her unjust death would be remembered for ever more, the gods transformed Langkawi into Malaysia's most beautiful islands – 99 dots of emerald green hills fringed by golden beaches set in a Hollywood-blue sea, and on which even the roads appear to sparkle.

The Curse of Mahsuri goes back to a time none can put an exact date to, but which historians believe was probably around 1820.

Mahsuri was the most beautiful girl in her village in Langkawi, whose islands lay off the north-west coast of Malaysia, and married a handsome warrior who spent much time away from home on matters of war. It was during one of these absences that a wandering salesman called at Mahsuri's home to sell her some cloth and haberdashery.

The two became friends, Mahsuri delighted by the poetry he would recite on subsequent visits to her village and the traditional songs he would sing.

One night Mahsuri invited him to stay for dinner, with her father as chaperone because of her husband's absence. When Mahsuri announced soon after that she was expecting a child, the jealous hag Mahura spread the rumour that Mahsuri was pregnant to the traveller.

Acting purely on the word of the old woman, the village elders ordered Mahsuri's death – rejecting her father's pleas that he had chaperoned her on the night the traveller had dined with her, and despite her husband proudly proclaiming how their child looked exactly like he.
 
As she was tied to a tree, Mahsuri beseeched of the gods: "If I am guilty of this thing, let red blood flow from my body; if I am innocent, let white blood mark this spot (and) there shall be no peace and prosperity on this island for a period of seven generations."

Several attempts were made to slay Mahsuri, first with a sword and then by knife. Wounded by these failures and to get it over with, Mahsuri begged that her executioners use a razor-sharp family dagger to end her misery.

But as the weapon was successfully plunged into her young body, the assembled villagers fell back in collective shock: white blood flowed into a great pool at Mahsuri's feet proving her innocence. Desperate attempts by the village medicine men failed to revive her, and she died in the arms of her sobbing husband soon after.

Mahura was driven out of the village, but it was too late and within days the gods responded to Mahsuri's beseechment by wreaking their wrath on Langkawi.

Many visitors to Langkawi pay a visit to Mahsuri's Mausoleum at Kampung Mawat about 15km out of the main township of Pekan Kuah; it contains Mahsuri's tomb, an aviary of local birds and peacocks representing peace and beauty, and a traditional house with a small museum.

And visitors are smitten with the beauty that the gods bestowed on the island at the end of their seven generations of havoc... including roads that can sparkle as the sun shines on them.

Is it because rubble from Langkawi's marble mines is mixed with the roadbase, or are those gods still reminding us of the beauty of the ill-fated Mahsuri?

Malaysia Airlines has fourteen flights weekly from Melbourne to Kuala Lumpur, twelve ex-Sydney, nine Perth, five Brisbane and four ex-Adelaide, with thrice-daily onward connections to Langkawi. Details 132 627 or  www.malaysiaairlines.com

PHOTO CAPTIONS:

[] MAHSURI's Mausoleum outside the town of Pekan Kuah.

[] LANGKAWI's beaches are amongst the most beautiful in Malaysia.

[] ONE of many artist's interpretations of the beautiful Mahsuri.