Rhodes tickets mean entry tickets for places to visit on Rhodes, an island of the Dodecanese. They sit among the Greece tours on this site. These notes on Rhodes tickets look at the ideas around entry: the turnstile, the Grand Master’s palace, the Colossus of Rhodes, the Siege of Rhodes, the water park and the electronic ticket, then four short questions. Each term is explained in plain words, and the facts come from reference articles.
What do Rhodes tickets mean?
Rhodes tickets are entry tickets for the sights, museums and parks of Rhodes, an island of the Dodecanese. The Dodecanese lie in the Aegean Sea. A turnstile is a gate that lets one person pass at a time.
Turnstiles were first used to let people pass while keeping livestock out. Livestock means farm animals such as sheep and cows. During the 19th century, turnstiles were adopted to control access to buildings and amusements. Amusements are places for fun, such as fairs. Rhodes tickets share that idea of controlled entry.
Coin-operated and later ticket-operated turnstiles appeared on mass transit systems in the 20th century. Mass transit means public transport for large numbers of people. A ratchet is a toothed wheel that turns one way only. Ratchet mechanisms let the turnstile turn one way for entry and block the other direction.
Turnstiles count the people who pass through a gate, even when no payment is involved. Turnstiles lead people to enter single-file, which means one person after another. Full-height turnstiles can neither be climbed over nor ducked under. Rhodes tickets rest on the same simple idea of one-way entry.
- Direction: A turnstile can be set to allow one-way human traffic.
- Height: Full-height turnstiles stand 7 feet, or 2.1 metres, high.
- Biometrics: Modern turnstiles can include biometrics, meaning body checks such as retina scans and fingerprints.
A turnstile shows the plain idea behind entry: one person at a time, counted and let through. Rhodes tickets work in the same spirit, as a way into a place. The next sections turn from the gate to the sights of Rhodes.
On Rhodes tickets, what does the Grand Master’s palace add?
Rhodes tickets link to the Grand Master’s palace in Rhodes Town. The head of the knights held the title of grand master. The palace began as a Byzantine citadel, built in the late seventh century. A citadel is a stronghold that guards a city.
Early in the 14th century, the knights repaired the palace and made major changes. A study says the palace site holds foundations of the ancient temple of the sun god Helios. The same study links the spot to the Colossus of Rhodes in antiquity. Rhodes tickets link to layers of history.
After the Ottomans took Rhodes in 1522, the palace became both a command centre and a fortress. The Ottoman Empire was a big realm governed from Turkey. A command centre is a place from which an army is directed. Such a role made the palace a working military site.
The Italian authorities needed a functional government building, one that benefited from the Hospitaller legacy. Mesturino re-created a structure despite having no remains from before Ottoman rule or documents to follow. Hospitaller means linked to the Knights Hospitaller, who held Rhodes. Legacy means what earlier people leave behind. Rhodes tickets link to that rebuilt look.
- Quake: An earthquake in 1481 damaged the palace, and builders mended it soon after.
- Critics: Mesturino’s reconstruction has been criticized for its lack of historical accuracy.
- Meeting: In 1988, leaders of the European Economic Community held a meeting in the palace.
The palace joins the Byzantines, the knights, the Ottomans and the modern age in one building. Rhodes tickets point to a site where each age left its mark. The next section turns from the palace to a famous statue of the sun god.
On Rhodes tickets, what does the Colossus of Rhodes bring?
Rhodes tickets link to the Colossus of Rhodes, a huge statue of the sun god Helios. A colossus is a statue far larger than life. No evidence shows the statue holding a torch aloft. Helios was the sun god of the ancient Greeks.
Archaeologist Ursula Vedder proposed that the statue was cast in large sections using traditional Greek methods. Pliny wrote that large rock masses inside the statue steadied it while it was raised. Cast means shaped by pouring hot metal into a mould, a hollow form. Pliny was a Roman author.
Rhodes was Christian by the 4th century, which made rebuilding an ancient pagan statue unlikely. Pagan here means linked to the old gods. Theophanes is the only source for the Arab dismantling story, and other sources trace back to him. Dismantling means taking apart. Rhodes tickets link to this old question.
In 2008, a German artist, Gert Hof, planned a modern Colossus at the harbour entrance. The 2015 plans were never carried out, and the project website went offline. Offline means no longer reachable on the web. Rhodes tickets lead on to modern plans as well as old stories.
- Dedication: Greek poetry anthologies have preserved what is believed to be the statue’s dedication text.
- Relief: A temple relief shows Helios with one hand shielding his eyes, as if saluting.
- Raid: In 653, an Arab force under the general Mu’awiya raided Rhodes.
The Colossus lives on in poems, carvings and plans rather than in a standing statue. Rhodes tickets raise the question of how a lost monument is remembered. A relief is a sculpture raised above a flat backdrop. The next section turns from a statue to a siege.
On Rhodes tickets, what does the Siege of Rhodes bring?
Rhodes tickets link to the Siege of Rhodes in 1522. The Ottoman army attacked the island held by the Knights Hospitaller. A truce was declared for 11 to 13 December for talks to take place. A truce is a halt in a war.
After the siege and an earthquake, the fortress was strengthened against artillery in the new Italian style. The old battlement parapets were replaced with slanting ones built for artillery fights. The number of gates in the fortress was also reduced. Artillery means large guns, and a parapet is a low wall at a wall’s edge.
Twelve days were given to the knights to leave the island. Islanders who wanted to leave were free to go at any time within three years. Rhodes tickets recall the terms of that surrender. A surrender is the act of giving up a fight to the other side.
Emperor Charles V gave the knights Gozo, and also the North African port of Tripoli. Gozo is an island of the Mediterranean Sea, and Tripoli is a port city in North Africa. The Ottomans moved 150 Jewish families from Thessaloniki to Rhodes in 1523. Rhodes tickets recall these moves too.
- Ships: The knights boarded fifty ships and sailed to Crete, a Venetian possession.
- Taxes: Islanders who stayed were exempt from Ottoman taxes for five years.
- Opera: In 1656, William Davenant wrote the first English opera about the siege.
The siege ended with a truce, a departure and a new set of rules for the island. Rhodes tickets lead back to a turning point in the story of Rhodes. The next section turns from war to a modern place of leisure, the water park.
On Rhodes tickets, what does the water park add?
Rhodes tickets link to leisure as well as history. A water park is a leisure place built around pools, slides and play areas. Water parks grew from public swimming pools, with roots in the late 1940s and early 1950s.
The United States has the largest water park market, with over 1,000 water parks. Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin, has five indoor water parks and is dubbed the Water Park Capital of the World. Dubbed means given a nickname. A market here means all the places that sell to buyers. Rhodes tickets sit in this market.
Water play areas are similar to water parks and include urban beaches and splash pads. A splash pad is a flat area with jets of water. One of the first indoor water parks, in Switzerland, dates from 1977. Indoor here means built under a roof. Rhodes tickets sit in the same wide field of leisure.
One spa-oriented water park has no water slides and offers saunas and steam rooms instead. Spa-oriented means built around rest and relaxation. One water park in northwestern Indiana has ice skating, made possible by cooling pipes under its plaza. A plaza is an open public square.
- Germany: In 2016, a German resort of 66,000 square metres was the world’s largest indoor water park.
- Britain: The largest indoor water park in the United Kingdom stands in Blackpool, England.
- Queues: In the 2000s, an effort to cut long waiting lines added conveyor belts or water jets.
Water parks show how a place of play grew out of the public pool. Their size, their roofs and their queue tricks all have a history. Rhodes tickets reach into that field of leisure as well as the old stones of Rhodes. The next section turns to the electronic ticket.
On Rhodes tickets, what does the electronic ticket bring?
Rhodes tickets lead to the electronic ticket. It is a method of entering, processing and marketing tickets for transport and entertainment companies. Entering here means letting a person in, and marketing means offering the ticket for sale. Processing means handling the booking.
Airline e-tickets were devised in about 1994. Members of an airline association have been required to use e-ticketing since 1 June 2008. An association is a group of firms in the same trade. E-ticketing means selling and holding tickets on a computer. Rhodes tickets belong to a wider change from paper to screen.
Airlines keep a booking record in a computer reservations system once a reservation is confirmed. A record locator, called a booking reference, is a code of six letters and digits. A reservation is a promise to keep a place. Rhodes tickets are one small case of such records.
Electronic train tickets can be held in a smartphone and shown to the conductor in an app. National operators in Denmark and the Netherlands use RFID smartcards as train tickets. RFID cards send a code by radio waves. A conductor is the railway worker who checks tickets. A smartphone is a phone that runs apps.
- Rail: A railway operator in the United States began offering electronic tickets on 30 July 2012.
- Events: Event e-tickets also have a barcode, which can be scanned on entry.
- Paper: E-tickets have largely replaced older multi-layered paper ticketing systems in airlines.
The electronic ticket moved from airlines to trains and events, and it keeps the record in a computer. A barcode is a printed set of bars that a scanner reads. Rhodes tickets can be seen against this wider story of entry and records.
Before Rhodes tickets, which questions come up?
Rhodes tickets raise four plain questions. A QR code is a square code that a phone can scan. The Acropolis of Rhodes is the upper town of ancient Rhodes. A grand master led the knights, and a season ticket is valid for multiple events.
On Rhodes tickets, which square code can a phone scan?
A QR code is a two-dimensional matrix barcode invented in 1994 by Masahiro Hara of Denso Wave. It was first made to label automobile parts. The design was influenced by the black and white stones played on a Go board. Matrix here means a grid of squares.
Which hill of Rhodes Town held old temples behind Rhodes tickets?
The Acropolis of Rhodes is the upper town of ancient Rhodes, dating from the 5th century BC. It stands on Monte Smith, which overlooks the island’s west coast. Two temples stand out there: one for Apollo, and one for Athena Polias together with Zeus Polieus.
Which grand master led the knights of Rhodes behind Rhodes tickets?
Pierre d’Aubusson was a Grand Master of the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem. He was elected Grand Master in June 1476. He was the fifth son of Jean d’Aubusson. The grand master was the leader of a knightly order. Order here means a society of knights.
Which pass lets one holder enter again and again behind Rhodes tickets?
A season ticket or season pass is a ticket valid for multiple events. The term season ticket was used in the United States in 1820 for theatre tickets. Margaret Donahue had the idea to sell season tickets for a Chicago baseball team in 1929.