Blogs from Antalya, Mediterranean, Turkey, Middle East

25 Feb 2020 Pamukkale Today turned out to be one of my favourites.This morning we drove out to the last of the ruins at Laodecia, another ancient biblical city mentioned in Revelations, and the last use of the infamous Museum Pass! Each site we've visited has had its own unique highlight. Today, we are at a live excavation site, and the team are reconstructing the western Theatre. It is facsinating to watch the sand blasting of pillars, meticulously measured so that each piece perfectly fits the next. This site is going to be absolutely incredible in years to come. It covers 5 hectares! Shane says: Museum card totals: Up 120 lira. There you go Sharls, well worth the museum card. Sharls says: There's a little spot that has piqued my interst around 40kms away called Kaklik ... read more

‘Best of the best’ is a pretty big claim for anything, but that's what we'll be seeing today according to Burak. Best of the best - Aspendos First attempt at being the bestest is the amphitheatre at Aspendos. We have to drive about 25 miles out of Antalya to find it and when we arrive we waft through the turnstile barriers with our trusty museum VIP card. The information board tells us this area was known as Pamphylia and that one of the most impressive cities in this area at the time was Aspendos. Ok, so what about the amphitheatre? We walk through a high ceilinged tunnel, niftily bypassing the museum gift shop, and enter stage right of the most imposing, and virtually complete Roman amphitheatre left in the world. It's truly amazing. The stage backdrop ... read more

After the tour ended I hitched a ride with Kevin and Sheri to Nicosia and stayed overnight in a hotel that is better left unmentioned. We strolled around the old city and sauntered across the Green Line to inspect the vast array of very reasonably-priced goods by Gucci, Nike etc. I flew out this morning from Ercan airport in North Cyprus to Antalya on the south coast of Turkey. It has a lovely old centre with Ottoman houses and a Roman gateway, surrounded by many square kilometres of resort-oriented new town. While inspecting the Roman-era mausoleum perched on a cliff by the sea I bumped into a retired Turkish policeman who spoke very good German (much better than mine!)... read more

We arrived at the Antalya bus station at about 7:30am following a 9 hour overnight bus ride from Göreme. After grabbing our bags we headed to the line of taxis, hopped in one and headed off towards our hotel in Kaleiçi, the old town of Antalya. Kaleiçi (which means ‘inside the castle or fortress’) was a Roman town, then a Byzantine, then a Seljuk Turkish, and finally an Ottoman Turkish town. It is built around a harbour, in the centre of the modern city of Antalya. Our hotel was closed when we arrived, but one of the staff from the hotel’s restaurant was cleaning up after a party the previous night. We grabbed a seat and waited until the hotel staff arrived. Not long after we sat down a very cute and very friendly pregnant cat ... read more

We haven't seen the sea since leaving Hong Kong at the end of June. In Xinjiang we were close to the point which is further from the sea than anywhere on earth. In Uzbekistan we'd been to where it used to be. So it was great to come around a bend on the mountain road to see the Med glittering in front of us - a bit of poetic licence taken there as it was an overcast day so it wasn't that glittery, but it was still the sea. We didn't have any particular plans for Antalya. We knew there were plenty of Greco-Roman ruins around but hadn't bothered to research which to visit, so we took the lazy option and did what we rarely do – we followed the Lonely Planet recommendation. Credit to them ... read more