This is a belated thank you to all who responded to my request for information on sundials in Greece. Since my trip was for the purpose of learning Greek folk dances, I didn't have much time to search for sundials. However, I did see the following few along our tour route:
Athens - Following Karlheinz's suggestion, I scanned the wall between the Theater of Dionysus and the Acropolis with my 200mm camera lens but could find nothing. Perhaps the very extensive restoration going on in preparation for the 2004 Olympics blocked my view? The Tower of the Winds is being restored as well. A nice modern (1929) horizontal dial is located at the entrance to the extensive gardens in Athens. Finally there is a time oriented sculpture located in the new subway station near the Parliment. With some stretch of my imagination it contains a spoked wheel with what appears to be a gnomon perpendicular to its plane with a spherical shadow sharpener at its end.
Cephallonia and Corfu - We went to these islands by ferry. They are beautiful but I found no sundials!
Ioannina - We stopped here enroute to Metsovo (no sundials there). Unfortunately, we stopped for only one hour so I could not get to the island where Karlheinz said there is a sundial in one of the monasteries there. However, a few of our tour party found a modern horizontal sundial at the entrance to the Jewish museum near a mosque in the main part of town and photographed it for me.
Florina - I saw the sundial in the Archeological Museum and gave a short talk on it to the tour group. As there is no identification of the sundial, I promised to send a description to the staff ( I'll base it on Gibbs book, and Nocola Severino's CD - Reinhold, thanks for the CD information). The evening we were in Florina, our bus was in the middle of a serious gridlock. While waiting for a number of local folk dancers to turn back rear view mirrors on the cars on a narrow street and convincing a truck driver to park on the sidewalk so we could reach our hotel, we noticed a modern horizontal sundial in front of a church!
Kozani - no sundials!
Thesssalonki - The German and Anatolia Schools are no longer there. We think we found Yeni Tsami but could not locate the sundial. We found the sundial in the YMCA square. It is a vertical declining dial inscribed on a rock, sans gnomon, installed in 1989. One interesting experience occurred in trying to locate a dial near the waterfront that several people stated was there. After one shop keeper informed us that everything closes at 3:30 pm on Saturday, we gave up!
Thanks again for your help. Please let me know if I can answer any questions.
Hal Brandmaier
- Sundials in Greece GinnyandHalB
- Re: Sundials in Greece Nicola
