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A Smaller Motor-Sailing Gulet Chartering Greece And Turkey A Queen Motor-Sailing Gulet Chartering Greece And Turkey This page last updated on 02/07/2010 Dear Homo Sapiens, There is no need to continue reading this page. What follows
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chartering in Greece and Turkey may be obtained by clicking on the blue links immediately above. Thank You.
Could you be surfing the web in search of a sailing yacht cruising Greece or Turkey? Perhaps for an elegant
and stable motor-sailer because you're not a part of the rail-in-the-water crowd, because you have had a very
tough year and wish to get away from it all, because you are dreaming of catered relaxation, a lounge chair under
a warm sun, a good book in hand, a gin-and-tonic at your elbow? And you believe it's in the Aegean you will find
true happiness? Sailing the Aegean? Well, you have probably surfed right to the most appropriate web page on the
entire world wide web. You have found Princess Karia II, an elegant motor-sailer with accommodations for twelve
in six private guest cabins. With an accomplished chef, as well, and with two hostesses among its crew of six.
With exquisitely appointed furnishings set against painstakingly varnished mahogany surrounded by teak decks.
Karia, it might be noted, may be spelled either with a Greek kappa (K) or with a Latin cee (C),
while the historical confines of the nation-state with that name straddle what is now the southwest corner of
Turkey. Facing the Aegean. Could you be dreaming of a motor-sailer chartering Turkey? A motor-sailer which in
Turkey is termed a gulet? Or could you be dreaming of a motor-sailing gulet chartering Greece? Or both?
The Karian people, it might be further noted, spoke their own language, a language yet to be deciphered with its
own alphabet, an alphabet akin to that of the Phoenicians and Greeks. But we know Karians had a similar dream
about the Aegean, not just because the historical confines of their nation-state bordered the Aegean but also
because the Karian civilization ruled the entire Aegean during the two millennia preceding arrival of the
Phoenicians in the third millennia BCE. We know this because of archaeological excavations on several Aegean
islands, and because when the sacred island of Delos in mid-Aegean was purified in the fifth century BCE by
learing the island of its interred, half of all the interred were keeping company with Karian artifacts. As you
might imagine, a Karian history of |
thousands of years would include a good
number of queens and princesses. And so it does, notably the two Queens Artemisia with remarkable records at sea
as well as in governance, Phryne who posed for Praxiteles famous nude Aphrodite gracing the temple at Karian
Knidos, Aspasia from Miletus, the companion of Pericles called the uncrowned Queen of Athens, and Ada enthroned
as Queen of Karia by Alexander in 334 BCE to succeed the satrap appointed by the Great King of Persia. But there
was in antiquity yet another woman of consequence, not to mention beauty, who might be considered a princess of
Karia. She was wife to a ruler of Karia in 334 BCE and spent several years at both Karian Rhodes and at
Halicarnassus (modern Bodrum), the capital city of Karia. What would you think about chartering Greece and Turkey
in her wake? At the crossroads of history. Yes, crossroads once patrolled by the triremes of her husbands Mentor
and Memnon, and once enjoyed by the lateen-rigged caique of Barsine herself. Barsine was a striking Anatolian
beauty with a considerable place in history. Born in 363 BCE at Gordium to the satrap or local King of Phrygia in
what is now north-central Turkey but what was then a part of the Persian Great King's empire, she was destined to
influence the course of eastern Mediterranean history. Following a failed revolt on the part of her father against
the Great King, Barsine's family in 354 BCE found refuge at the Macedonian court of Philip II. Barsine had earlier
been married at the age of 8 to Mentor of Rhodes, a naval commander in the pay of her father, and separated from
him at the age of 9. Philip's guest for the next twelve years, and a statuesque beauty, she came to know Philip's
son Alexander and his tutor Aristotle before rejoining her husband at Rhodes in 342 BCE. Mentor died two years
later leaving Barsine a widow at the age of 23. She promptly married Mentor's brother Memnon, also a naval
commander formerly in the employ of her father. Memnon had meanwhile succeeded his brother as the Great King's
ruler of the Troad (Troy) which then included Pergamum where he had his estates, and he was still ruler when
Alexander's Macedonian and Greek army crossed the Hellespont in 334 BCE. Following Alexander's victory over a
Persian and Greek army (yes, Greeks fought on both sides) at the Granicus, Memnon was made supreme commander of
the Great King's forces in all of Asia Minor while Barsine was dispatched to Halicarnassus. Following his victory
at the Granicus Alexander detoured inland to Gordium, some say to cut the Gordian knot. By then Barsine
had been dispatched from Halicarnassus as a hostage to the Great King's court, securing (Greek) Memnon's loyalty.
As Memnon was then commander of the Persian Navy which was Phoenician, Cypriot, and Rhodian Greek in make-up,
and as Alexander's admiral Nearchus commanded an inferior Macedonian fleet, Barsine went safely by galley to the
Middle East, sailing down the Aegean coast of what is now SW Turkey and then along Turkey's Mediterranean coast
eventually reaching Persepolis. Alexander that same year proceeded to take Ephesus and Aspasia's Miletus without
a fight but met stiff resistance at Halicarnassus defended by Barsine's Memnon. The outcome was indecisive with
Alexander moving on before subduing all of the city, and Memnon later abandoned its defense. Memnon with
300 galleys then proceeded to take the war to Alexander's rear, investing the island of Chios and then besieging
Lesbos where he died of natural causes in 333 BC. Barsine was again left a widow, this time at the age of 30.
Isn't this the kind of holiday embellishment for which you are searching? Turkish coast sailing at the crossroads
of history. Greek island hopping. A motor-sailing gulet cruising the Aegean from Bodrum. Or from Gocek. Or from
Rhodes or Kos. A motor-sailing gulet to cruise the Mediterranean coast of Turkey and among Aegean islands of Greece.
The holiday of a lifetime. A holiday at the crossroads of history. At about the time of Memnon's death, Alexander
defeated the Great King at the Battle of Issus near modern Iskenderun, Turkey, and, having taken the Great
King's entourage captive (depicted above), found he was "willing to attach himself to so agreeable and
illustrious a woman" (Plutarch's Life Of Alexander) as Barsine. For the next six years Barsine was a
fixture at Alexander's side, accompanying him in the reduction of modern Iraq and then in the conquest of
modern Afghanistan. Between them they knew something which escaped Dick Cheney and George W. Bush. In 327 BC
Barsine gave birth to Alexander's first son Herakles, andut after Alexander's death in 323 BC returned to Pergamum.
There she resided for the next fourteen years until mother and son were assassinated in 309 BCE as threats to the
Macedonian throne. The authors can put the work-exhausted aboard a motor-sailing gulet with an experienced crew
able to sail among Aegean islands of Greece in style, the Cyclades, the Dodecanese, the Sporades, or they can put
charter guests aboard a motor-sailing gulet to cruise Barsine's routes around the Greek island of Rhodes and along
the south coast of Turkey to Iskenderun. Princess Karia II, a superb crewed gulet chartering Greece and Turkey and
knowledgeable of local history. Contact Blue Cruise Yacht
Charters today at