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Published: October 18th 2010
Myra
Outside of theatre and acropolis on top of hillFriday 15th October: Return journey, Kas to Antalya.
After checking out of the Otel Medusa quite early, 9am, we arranged for a taxi to take us to the Otogar (bus station). During the ride the taxi driver asked where we were headed to and was told that it was Demre (home of St. Nicholas/Santa Claus); as we wanted to check out the ruins of Myra which are close to Demre before heading off to Antalya. The driver offered to take us to Demre including a detour to Myra: waiting for us there, then on to the Demre Otogar; and after some haggling we agreed on a price, having reckoned that it would cost us the same in bus fares plus taxi fares in Demre as our driver was offering. So we had a fast comfortable ride to Myra, saw around the ruins, the usual Greek/Roman theatre plus Lycian rock tombs in the cliffs; then on to the Church of Saint Nicholas very close to the Demre Otogar. The Church is largely complete and had lots of religous murals on the walls. What was particularly noticeable was the large number of Russian tourists, several busloads at both the church and at Myra.
Myra
Inside of theatre Most of the Russian women wore headscarfs when visiting the Church; obviously Saint Nicholas meant a lot to them. Our visit lasted not more than 15 minutes mainly because there wasn't a lot to see and because of the crowds in the Church. So it was off to the Otogar and the bus to Antalya. This journey took very nearly 4 hours and wasn't very pleasant as the bus was full and its A/C wasn't working. Halfway to Antalya the driver picked up some more passengers even though there were not enough seats. This problem was resolved when the driver placed two plastic stools in the aisle and got everyone crammed in. After alighting at the Antalya Otogar we found a bus that took us into town very close to our hotel. As we were somewhat over-heated and fraught after the long hot journey we stopped off for a couple of fruit juices at a kiosk near the hotel. The fruit juices here are great. The fresh fruit is squeezed while you wait and you get a lot of fruit for your money: a typical orange juice has at least six oranges in it while the pomegranate (Jane's favourite) also
Myra Theatre masks
The one on the left, wearing the shades, may not be an original has up to six fruits in it.
After settling back into our room at the hotel we decided against going on an organised trip the next day to the ancient sites at Perge, Aspendos and Side as it involved getting up a bit too early (leaving at 8am), so instead we went along to the taxi firm who had taken us to Termessos and struck a deal with them to take us to Perge and Aspendos leaving at 10.30am. This turned out to be a good move as not only did we have the flexibilty of deciding how much time to spend at each place, we also didn't have to stick with the large groups which were guided round the sites, moving at the pace of the slowest groupie.
Saturday 16th October, more ruins. Although the Lonely Planet Guide to Turkey (our bible) is quite dismissive of Perge, "Now little more than a ruined site that can easily be explored in an hour", they are in fact talking out of the back of their planet. Perge is a very extensive site with many interesting features and requires at least two hours exploration to do it any kind of justice
Between Demre and Komluca
The D400 main road along the Turquoise Coast. Great views at every turn in the road. (and that's coming from Jenks, the high speed tourist). A suitably stiff comment will be forwarded to the Lonely Planet when we return to UK. Perge is the best site we've visited so far (Editor's note: Jane has a First Class Honours Degree in Archaeology, so no arguments). It has Roman baths in good condition revealing the underfloor heating, a long virtually intact, colonnaded street (longer than the ones at Jerash in Jordan, or Palmyra in Syria), with a central water course designed to provide cooling waterfalls every 10/15meters. A magnificent market place surrounded with columns plus two very impressive Hellenistic and Roman gates: a large stadium and the standard issue theatre (which was closed to the public but we didn't feel the loss as we've already seen quite a few). Then on to Aspendos and its theatre, the best preserved Roman theatre of the ancient world. Sure enough it was a very impressive theatre in marvellous condition; so good that performances are still held there. The rest of the site was - by our somewhat jaded standards - rather uninteresting, EXCEPT for the aqueduct which I had been told by the boss of the Otel Medusa in Kas (Dr.
Perge Panorama
Main street leading to gates and stadium Peter Nurcin, a Belgian archaeologist and husband of the hotel owner's daughter) was a "triple-inverted-siphon" with two massive water pressure towers. This siphon had to take water across a valley then up about 60 feet into the main town of Aspendos which was built on a small plateau above the flat coastal plain. Although bigger in scale this aqueduct isn't as impressive as the one at Patara as most of the watercourse has collapsed and you don't get to see the stone pipe. The walk to view these structures was worth it, sort of, as on the way back the light rain that we'd experienced since arriving at Aspendos became very heavy forcing us to take shelter behind a wall. During a lull in the downpour we headed back to the taxi only to get drenched by a further downpour when we were halfway back. We made it back to the taxi: damp but archaeologically fulfilled, and headed back to Antalya with a brief detour to look at a beautiful Ottoman era bridge built on Roman foundations. Back to our hotel, hot showers and coffee and feeling almost human. A good day, despite the weather.
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