I crossed back into Greece, the EU and the Schengen Area today. A pretty routine bus ride except that I was singled out for special treatment at the border by the Greeks. They searched my bags and asked me about where I was going - and what had I been doing in North Cyprus (the part occupied by Turkey). Aha! Funny how the government of Cyprus seems pretty cool about people crossing over to the North but the Greeks get their knickers in a twist over it. I couldn't help but laugh at how the road surface on the Turkish side got worse and worse as we approached the frontier. I don't think I saw one road sign in Turkey naming Greece or a Greek town. How childish!... read more

I think that Istanbul has as good a claim to be an Eternal City as Rome has - perhaps even better, since Istanbul has been an important city continuously since Constantine chose it has the capital of the Roman Empire in the 4th century, thus driving Rome into decline for centuries. One really visible sign of this continuity is Aya Sofya, the huge Byzantine church built in the 6th century which was preserved virtually intact over the ages because when Moslems captured the city they converted it to a mosque. No building in Rome from that time survives (with one exception) because they were all used as stone quarries by mediaeval peasants. (The exception is the Pantheon which survived because it was made of non-reusable concrete!) I walked around the old core of the city quite ... read more

Yesterday and today were a tale of two goddesses. After leaving Pamukkale I visited Aphrodisias, a fascinating site originally based on a sanctuary of - guess who - Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love. In its heyday it was a major centre for stone-carving, and many beautiful relief panels have been found. Today I saw Ephesus, which was famous for its huge temple to Artemis, the virgin huntress (and no friend of Aphrodite!) The Artemision was one of the seven wonders of the world, but is now sadly reduced to miscellaneous chunks of rock and a single standing column. Very different places, both then and now. Ephesus was command central for the Romans in this part of the world, whereas Aphrodisias became a bit of a backwater. But the most obvious difference was the presence of ... read more

It was a travel day today: 3.5 hours on a bus trying to be a plane and 30 minutes on a bus trying to be a taxi. What I'd heard about Turkish intercity buses was all true: they're run more like planes, with seat-back screens, reclining bucket seats and drink+snack service. Not a bad way to travel. Then I took a dolmuş for the final leg of the trip to Pamukkale: a bus with about 15 seats that serves smaller places. Not many foreign tourists here. The owner of the hotel told me that even though it's early in the season there would normally be more Western Europeans and North Americans. The mineral springs were pretty busy, but almost everyone seemed to be Turkish.... read more

We spent the day at Paphos, the place where Aphrodite drifted ashore on her half shell. Her birth was the consequence of a particularly nasty father-son conflict, when Cronos emasculated his father Ouranos and the severed member fell into the sea off Cyprus. The "foam" (as they politely call it) from this organ caused the sea to give birth to Aphrodite. She was almost born on Cythera, near the Peloponnese, but the winds blew her to Paphos. (I wonder what the Cytherians have to say about that!) Anyway, her landing spot is a beach of beautiful polished stones with several impressive white rocks rising from the waves. Paphos was, not surprisingly, a major location for worship of Aphrodite and there's a large complex of religious buildings there that date from around 1400 BC through to 400 ... read more