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Published: April 21st 2006
... started at Stansted airport in a Thompson Tours plane to Turkey and ended at Antalya airport. They all got on a bıg bus heading East to the resorts and I got a bus into Antalya's old town (Kaleıci) to find somewhere to stay. A met a German who was going to Bodrum to go sailıng wıth some friends. I dropped my bag at Pensiyon Sabah and we went for a couple of beers. I had a wander around the Roman (but still used) port and then Hadrian's Gate and the Clock Tower.
Pictures to follow. This place ısn't well set up for cameras and is really slow. On Wednesday I went on a tour to the Roman ruins at Perge and then Aspendos. Perge was very impressıve but quite ruined. I'll try not to go into the history of everything here but most of the ruins were from a flourishıng Roman town. Aspendos had an amazing theatre that Ataturk was so impressed by that he decided to restore it (perhaps this was a bit of a nightmare in disguise). I think that it's the most ıntact ancient theatre anywhere. The odd thing, from what I can tell,
Perge Main Street
Perge was founded after the Trojan War by Greek settlers and flourished from Alexander the Great's time until C2 AD. It declined to abandon in Byzantine times. is that it seats 15000 and the city's population was about 20000 when ıt was built. The other people on the tour were nice and we went for a couple of drinks afterwards - one couple live right next to George and one was made up of an American writer who does placements in different countries gettıng the facts and figures (he's just finished in Bulgaria and is off to Jordan next. Cool job!) and his Romanian girlfrıend. A tour, unfortunately, seemed the easiest way to get to the sites and was not much more expensive than a D.I.Y. job. We got dragged to the obligatory jewelry shop and the other couple (a Belgian woman and her poor husband) actually bought a gold ring. Very tacky and very expensive.
Yesterday I walked along in Antalya to a supermarket and then the beach. I then went to the Archaeological Museum which, although they and all the other sites don't seem to offer student discounts anymore, was brilliant. They had lots of local finds - the statues (many from 2C AD Perge) and sarcophaguses were the most impressive. I will try to fill in the history a bit more when I
don't have to wander all over the keyboard and I can put pictures on.
Today I went on another tour to Termessos and the Duden Waterfalls. There was only one other person, who was following Alexander the Great's footsteps. Most people at the hostel seem to be doing fairly similar things to me - some were here for a big festival for the eclipse last month. Alexander tried three times to take Termessos but couldn't. Having walked up there (1200m above sea level) I can see why! The ruins date back a long tıme to the Phrygıans or Hittites. Most of the remains were Hellenistic (so I suppose that Alexander's legacy eventually conquered them...) but badly damaged by an earthquake. I saw my first Lycian style tombs carved into the rock faces. They were done in about 7C BC but it looked like yesterday. The best thing there was the small (4500) theatre, whıch is on a clıff overlookıng a huge mountain and the sea. Breathtaking!
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daddy
non-member comment
lucky b*****
it sounds veryu exciting! Daddy