KAVALA, GREECE

Kavala (Greek: Καβάλα) is a city in northern Greece, the principal seaport of eastern Macedonia and the capital of Kavala regional unit. It is situated on the Bay of Kavala, across from the island of Thasos. Kavala is located on the Egnatia motorway and is a one and a half-hour drive to Thessaloniki (160 kilometres west) and forty minutes drive to Drama (37 km north) and Xanthi (56 km east). Its nickname is The cyan city (Η γαλάζια πόλη).

The most important sights in the old town are the Castle, the Acropolis, the Imaret and the old Lighthouse at the end of Theodorou Pavlidou St, beneath which the rocks of Panayia are situated. The landmark of the Old City is the Mohamed Ali square, dominated by its statue, situated between the “konaki” (his house built at the end of the 18th century) and the church of Panayia, built in 1965 on the ruins of an older post-Byzantine three-aisled basilica.

The modern town Kavala boasts a unique character reflecting its recent past: Neoclassical mansions and big tobacco warehouses evoke the memory of a distant past when a wealthy bourgeoisie was dominating the city. In the “Mecca of tobacco” as Kavala was named in the past, thousands of tobacco workers, male and female, earned their living. Palm trees line the esplanade of the port,where modern buildings and fish tavernas are side by side, while fish boats cast their reflection on azure waters.

This post is part of the Our World Tuesday meme,
and also part of the Ruby Tuesday meme,
and also part of the Trees & Bushes meme,

and also part of the Travel Tuesday meme,

and also part of the Wordless Wednesday meme.

WINTER DARK

This post is part of the Skywatch Friday meme,
and also part of the Saturday Silhouettes meme.

FRIDAY GREENS #79 - GRANNY SMITHS

Welcome to this meme active every Friday. The theme is "Friday Greens" and you can post images, art, photos where the predominant colour is GREEN!

GREEN is the colour between blue and yellow in the spectrum; coloured like grass or emeralds.

The Granny Smith is a tip-bearing apple cultivar, which originated in Australia in 1868. It is named after Maria Ann Smith, who propagated the cultivar from a chance seedling. The tree is thought to be a hybrid of Malus sylvestris, the European Wild Apple, with the domestic apple M. domestica as the pollinator. The fruit has hard, light green skin and a crisp, juicy flesh. Granny Smiths go from being completely green to turning yellow when overripe. The acidity mellows significantly on ripening, and it takes on a balanced flavour.

If you take part in this meme:

• Please link back to this page from your blog, with the Friday Greens logo or link text;
• In the spirit of community, please visit other participants to see their photos and leave a comment;
• Say hello here in the comments box, which is always appreciated!

KNIPHOFIA

Kniphofia. also called tritoma, red hot poker, torch lily, knofflers or poker plant, is a genus of flowering plants in the family Asphodelaceae, first described as a genus in 1794. It is native to Africa. Herbaceous species and hybrids have narrow, grass-like leaves 10–100 cm  long, while perennial species have broader, strap-shaped foliage up to 1.5 m  long.

All plants produce spikes of upright, brightly coloUred flowers well above the foliage, in shades of red, orange and yellow, often bicoloured.  The flowers produce copious nectar while blooming and are attractive to bees. In the New World they may attract sap-suckers such as hummingbirds and New World orioles. The Kniphofia genus is named after Johann Hieronymus Kniphof, an 18th-century German physician and botanist.

This post is part of the Floral Friday Fotos meme,

and also part of the Orange you Glad It's Friday meme.

ZEPHYR, TOWER OF THE WINDS

The Tower of the Winds, also called Horologium [Greek: Horologion (“Timepiece”); in modern Greek, the structure is called Aéreides ("Winds").] is a building in the Agora of Athens erected about 100–50 BC by Andronicus of Cyrrhus for measuring time. Still standing, it is an octagonal marble structure 12.8 m high and 7.9 m in diameter. Each of the building’s eight sides faces a point of the compass and is decorated with a frieze of figures in relief representing the winds that blow from that direction; below, on the sides facing the sun, are the lines of a sundial. The Horologium was surmounted by a weather vane in the form of a bronze Triton and contained a water clock (clepsydra) to record the time when the sun was not shining.

Zephyr was the name given by the Ancient Greeks to the west wind, which is a wind that blows from the west, in an eastward direction. In Western tradition, it has usually been considered the mildest and most favourable of the directional winds.

In Greek mythology, Zephyrus was the personification of the west wind and the bringer of light spring and early summer breezes. In the myth of Cupid and Psyche, Zephyrus was the attendant of Cupid, who brought Psyche to his master's palace. Geoffrey Chaucer wrote of the "swete breth" of Zephyrus, and a soft, gentle breeze may be referred to as a zephyr, as in Shakespeare's Cymbeline (IV, ii): "They are as gentle / As zephyrs blowing below the violet, / Not wagging his sweet head."

This post is part of the Outdoor Wednesday meme,
and also part of the Wordless Wednesday meme,
and also part of the ABC Wednesday meme.

PERTH PROMENADE

Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia, with an estimated population of 1.74 million living in the Perth metropolitan area. The metropolitan area is located in the South West Division of Western Australia, between the Indian Ocean and a low coastal escarpment known as the Darling Range. The central business district and suburbs of Perth are situated on the banks of the Swan River.

Shortly after the establishment of the port settlement of Fremantle, Perth was founded on 12 June 1829 by Captain James Stirling as the political centre of the Swan River Colony. As the business and administration centre for the resource-rich state, Perth has grown consistently. Perth became known worldwide as the “City of Light” when city residents lit their house lights and streetlights as American astronaut John Glenn passed overhead while orbiting the earth on Friendship 7 in 1962. The city repeated the act as Glenn passed overhead on the Space Shuttle in 1998.

Perth is tied for eighth place in The Economist’s 2011 list of the world's most livable cities. Perth’s residents have traditionally enjoyed the highest standard of living of any of Australia’s big cities. Until recently, the reason for this has been that, for most occupations, wages were only a little less than could be found in cities such as Sydney and Melbourne while house prices in Perth were considerably lower than the other cities.

Western Australia has huge deposits of metal ores and coal. Booming Asian economies, particularly China, have sourced many of their raw materials from Western Australia, resulting in high economic growth for the state and its capital, Perth. Many large mining and mineral concerns have their headquarters in Perth. Mining itself is carried on outside Perth but the city is home to many support industries employing engineers and scientists. There is a large oil refinery at Kwinana, 25 km south of Perth, with associated engineering and chemicals jobs. With the worldwide economic downturn, Perth is now seeing reduced growth.

This post is part of the Our World Tuesday meme,

and also part of the Ruby Tuesday meme,

and also part of the Trees & Bushes meme,

and also part of the Travel Tuesday meme,

and also part of the Wordless Wednesday meme.

HAPPY 4th JULY!

To  all  readers  of  this  blog  in  the  USA,
best  wishes  for  a  very  happy

INDEPENDENCE DAY !

LORIKEET

The rainbow lorikeet (Trichoglossus moluccanus) is a species of parrot found in Australia. It is common along the eastern seaboard, from northern Queensland to South Australia and Tasmania. Its habitat is rainforest, coastal bush and woodland areas. Several taxa traditionally listed as subspecies of the rainbow lorikeet are now treated as separate species. Rainbow lorikeets have been introduced to Perth, Western Australia; Auckland, New Zealand; and Hong Kong. This fine specimen was perching on a flowering yellow gum tree (Eucalyptus leucoxylon ‘Rosea’).

This post is part of the Saturday Critters meme,
and also part of the Camera Critters meme.

HOMETIME

Driving home on a Winter's evening in suburban Melbourne.

This post is part of the Skywatch Friday meme,
and also part of the Saturday Silhouettes meme.

FRIDAY GREENS #78 - LICHEN

Welcome to this meme active every Friday. The theme is "Friday Greens" and you can post images, art, photos where the predominant colour is GREEN!

GREEN is the colour between blue and yellow in the spectrum; coloured like grass or emeralds.

A lichen is a composite organism that arises from algae or cyanobacteria (or both) living among filaments of a fungus in a symbiotic relationship. The combined life form has properties that are very different from the properties of its component organisms. Lichens come in many colours, sizes, and forms. The properties are sometimes plant-like, but lichens are not plants. Lichens may have tiny, leafless branches (fruticose), flat leaf-like structures (foliose), flakes that lie on the surface like peeling paint (crustose), or other growth forms.  Lichens do not have roots that absorb water and nutrients as plants do, but like plants they produce their own food by photosynthesis using sunlight energy, from carbon dioxide, water and minerals in their environment. When they grow on plants, they do not live as parasites and only use the plants as a substrate.

If you take part in this meme:

• Please link back to this page from your blog, with the Friday Greens logo or link text;
• In the spirit of community, please visit other participants to see their photos and leave a comment;
• Say hello here in the comments box, which is always appreciated!