23. Paul's day tour to Turkish archaeological sites

 


The museum trip inspired me to go on a tour of the immediate area where the artifacts were found. I was picked up near Adrian's gate and after picking up a few more passengers at other locations, we were off.

The stops were:

A waterfall
The seaside town of Side (pronounced see-day)
Aspendos
Perge

We drove out of Antalya central and through the suburbs. It was interesting to see many small mosques (Mini-Mosques or Mosquettes as I call them) where smaller populations don't need bigger ones. 

There were these weird signs along the main road. They had a round sign on a pole with numbers on them. 60, 70, 80. Since most of the traffic were doing 110 they couldn't have been speed limit signs, but apparently they were and I checked my seat belt was fastened properly.

First stop, the waterfall. Oh dear... The water running over our retainer wall in Witta in summer was more impressive. It was 15m wide and only a 2m drop. Wondered if this was going to get better...


Next stop, Side. Now we're getting somewhere, literally. 

It was a seaside town that has a complete city buried beneath the existing one. The diggings are carefully being done so as to not turn the town into a dust bowl.

Some of the houses there are 400-500 years old like the ones below.



Right near the water's edge were the ruins of a temple. Not much left due to being exposed to the elements, but impressive nonetheless.


The carvings along the top of the temple are supposedly the head of Medusa, a Greek mythological creature who turned all that gazed upon her into stone.


A close up


And another one of Medusa just sitting on the side of the road.



Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was an Ottoman and Turkish army officer, revolutionary statesman, writer, and the first President of Turkey. He is credited with being the founder of the Republic of Turkey.

As expected, flags all over Turkey were being flown at half-mast.


Some of the excavations being done.



The next stop was my favourite. Aspendos has one of the best-preserved Roman theatres in the world.



Up a very steep hill were the ruins of a Basilica.



We then went to Perge. That site was amazing. It was here where many of the statues in the museum were found. It covered a very large area and took us a good two hours to get around. Two thousand years ago they had Roman baths with running hot and cold water and the first 'shopping malls'.



Fires were lit in the gaps that heated the water above where the base of the baths existed.








Apparently, in the quieter moments, the shopkeepers of yesteryear used to play a form of backgammon with each other.
 

All in all a good day that took up nine and a half hours. 

Max didn't come as there were many kilometres to walk over uneven ground and she didn't want to put the nicely healed leg under unnecessary stress.

(Max: I actually don't remember what I did that day. Not much I suspect. And it probably involved staring out at that view across the bay to the mountains.)

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