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Published: January 4th 2016
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At 8 in the morning, we enjoyed our breakfast on the rooftop terrace, enjoying the nice view. Typical breakfast, cheese, tomates and courgette salat, bread, and, of course, Turkish tea. We had to rush a little because pickup was organised at 8.30, at a ten minutes’ walk from the hotel and breakfast only opened at 8.
8.45 in front of the caravan Sarai, a mini-bus stoped. Obviously we were already panicking a little bit. Even if we know, that the Turkish “quart d’heure” exists, we could not help being stressed if they did not show up punctually.
The guide started a bit to tell us historical interesting points and we arrived, as far as I can remember, about an hour later at Priène. Actually, it was the second built Priène. This antic city is really well preserved. We could see a temple dedicated to goddess Athena as well as a theatre.
Then, we continued in the direction of Milet, where the famous mathematician Thalès comes from and also where Pythagoras developed his famous Theoreme. The architects, or whatever, were inspired from Milet when they built Priène. One of them, the Architect Hyppodamus
found out the quadratic regular city plan, which you can observe nowadays in Rom for instance. “Milet” was the first step ever in urbanisation. 16000 people could seat in this magnificent semi-amphitheatre. For that time, it was a huge number. In the past, “Milet” actually laid by the sea and had a proper port, but nowadays, it is 15km far away from the sea. It dried out and the “Bafa Lake”, which used to be part of the sea, resulted from the drought, leaving a huge smooth plain in between.
The visit of “Milet” was followed by an amazing Turkish buffet, which was waiting for uns in Didym, a few kilometres further away. We ate as much as possible, first because it was delicious, and secondly, so that we didn’t have to pay for diner in the evening. (We are Swiss and travellers but still students). In Didym, we could marvel at Apollon’s temple. People used to visit him, as the oracle in Delphi. They built and rebuilt it three times. Two gigantic 25 meters high columns still stands, dominating the ruins.
Our guide, whom I don’t remember the name, was simply
amazing. He spoke half English and half German, because he noticed they were German guest and we also talked to him in German (and English). The American girls didn’t like it much and were quite irritated, which made us laugh. I mean, they can also once in their life, experience the reality that someone doesn’t speak the same language as you. (Important is to be said, that the guide told the same in both languages) As, like few American / british people (luckily still a minority), they couldn’t even speak a work in any other language than English and were frustrated being among people that could speak more than three languages. It was quite funny. The others were from Canada, Australia, Slovenia and China. The Chinese guy couldn’t help taking picture of him in front of all attractions, smiling, with the thumb turned upwards. That was the only thing he has got in his backpack: a tripod.
All those city have seen thousand years of civilisation, from the Greeks to the Romans. We could revise a bit our courses and key historical dates.
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