Travelling Hopefully - Yet More Ruins Edition

Despite being possessed of St John’s basilica, a rather significant mosque and the ruins of an aqueduct running through the middle of town Selcuk is most famous for being a five minute drive from Ephesus.

What is Ephesus? Well nowadays it’s a large expanse of stone and ruins but back in the day it was one of the most important cities in the world as long as you define “the world” as being the central eastern Mediterranean. Still Ephesus was somewhere significant and had been for a considerably long time.

Ancient (or at least reasonably old) Greeks founded the place allegedly on an existing cult centre. As with most things Ancient Greek it wound up being slightly less ancient Roman as if to prove that no amount of philosophy and learning will protect you from a hard bastard with a sword.

Subsequent to that it became one of the earliest centres of Christian learning. Saint John preached there and St Paul wrote them endless letters and various church councils were held there. Eventually a combination of Goths, earthquakes and river siltation persuaded the surviving occupants to move somewhere a little less fragile.

In addition to the above Ephesus was home to the Temple of Artemis, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Unfortunately some nutcase burnt it down and all that’s left is a single column slapped together from the ruins to mark the spot.

We spent a happy few hours wandering around the ruins and photographing the random cats and dogs that were also wandering the ruins. My favourite was the library of Celcius which was built to honour a prominent local Roman. His son had actually wanted to build a big mausoleum for his father on some of the choicest real estate in the city. The local officials said “No” at which point the son came back and said “How about I build a really impressive library instead and stuff Daddy’s corpse under the floorboards?” Apparently the city authorities were fine with that so an awesome library holding twelve thousand scrolls (and at least one corpse) was created. Modern librarians might want to take note if they’re short on funding.

Ephesus also has an onsite museum that gives a video show of the city’s history. It’s quite a good show and at the end of it my knowledge of Ephesus had been marginally increased.

Travelling Hopefully - Overunning Cup Edition

Our tour guide presented with two pieces of good news before we left Pumukkale. Firstly he had managed to wangle us a balloon ride over the ruins of Hierapolis the next day. Great joy was evinced by all and sundry. Then having dangled the bait he pulled out the big one. That afternoon we would go to a wine tasting from a local winery. Cheers rang out around the room. Some of the more emotional had cheeks wet with tears.

It is fair to say that we looked forward to the coming dawn with a sense of anticipation normally only felt by those who believed the last judgment was at hand.

Early (but not too early) the next morning we were deposited in a field and left in the care of people whose idea of fun was blasting immense amounts of air and gas into giant condom shaped things spread out on the grass.

Air and gas were duly blasted and when the sad shriveled fabric had transformed into round bulbous growths looming over our heads we were invited to clamber into the basket. Assistance was given to the feeble and those who had changed their minds at the last minute.

Then we and fifty or so other balloons were aloft, rising into the morning sky silent except for the blasts from the flame jets and the excited squeals of the passengers. My apologies to anyone who was disturbed by my excited squeals.

From up above I could look down on the theatre at Hierapolis and gaze across the countryside laid out like the world’s best map beneath me. Down below vehicles raced down the streets trying to reach our landing spot before we did. The sun came up from behind the Taurus mountains (yes, they’re still around) and I almost gibbered with joy. 

Eventually what goes up had to come down. A four wheel drive with a trailer was parked in a convenient field. We glided low and the pilot actually landed us on the trailer at which point willing hands lashed the basket to the trailer to prevent us drifting off again.

Once safely back on terra firma we headed off for wine tasting. Sorry, I mean the charming Turkish town of Selcuk which was conveniently located near the ruins of the city of Ephesus a major centre and port of the ancient world.  Selcuk is also the location of the basilica of St John the Apostle (the one who wrote the Book of Revelations). Allegedly he is buried there although solid proof is lacking.

We ate lunch in a mounting frenzy of anticipation until our guide could withstand the pointed comments no longer and we made the short voyage to the village of Sirince which is famous for its picturesque architecture and fruit wines.

We arrived, wine was drunk. Some of it was quite good all of it was consumed. Then I had ice cream, as you do.

Travelling Hopefully - Limestone Edition

It is a commonly held fallacy that any liquid takes on magical qualities if it has bubbles in it. This explains the appeal of champagne and soda water. If you pass said water through a couple of random chemicals suddenly you have a healing spring and people will flock to it eagerly for a “cure”. 

This made a lot more sense in ancient times when a one in ten survival rate was still better than most doctors could claim. So it isn’t surprising that when the Ancients in what would eventually become Turkey discovered warm springs bubbling out of limestone they went nuts for it and built a spa town called Hierapolis right next to the source of these healthful waters. What is slightly more surprising is that the place is now a ruin rather than a thriving health resort.

And what an impressive ruin it is. There are Roman ruins heaped on top of earlier Greek ruins. There is an impressive set of Roman baths, now a museum containing relics dug up from the surrounding site. There’s also an extensive necropolis. As any medical practitioner will tell you the best place to find corpses is a hospital. People die there all the time. It’s the same with Hierapolis, being a centre of health and healing meant it attracted the sick and the dying. A goodly number of them never left.

One can still bathe in the warm mineral springs if you think it will do you any good. The occasional drowning aside it probably won’t do you any harm which is the first requirement for a medical treatment. I didn’t bother, deciding to treat my disease riddled body in the traditional manner, by paying a doctor to misinterpret my symptoms and prescribe some generic drugs that probably cause your colon to explode if you mix up the dosage. Medical science, as you can see, has moved on although its destination remains in doubt.

I did go to the theatre which is huge for the ancient world and amazingly well preserved given that the entire city was flattened by an earthquake. I managed to get a few good photos once we shoved the influencers out of the way.

By this time it was evening and we repaired to our hotel in nearby Pamukkale. This is a Turkish town that seems to exist so tourist buses heading for Hierapolis have somewhere to park. Our hotel had a pool that we didn’t swim in.

Travelling Hopefully - Greenhouse Edition

One of the hidden gems of the trip so far has been being informed of whatever agricultural product the particular region of Turkey we’re travelling through is famous for. As we headed towards Beypazari on the first day it was all about carrots. Cappadocia was grapes and pumpkins then Konya, centre of Turkey’s wheat belt. As we approached the Taurus Mountains we were solemnly informed that strawberries were the crop du jour and down around Antalya and Kas it is cucumbers, zucchini and tomatoes.

To facilitate the production of the latter the flat land (there isn’t much) is covered in domed structures. From a distance it looks like an industrial estate but they’re actually greenhouses. Only these aren’t just greenhouses they’re more like green mansions, sprawling estates where the aforementioned vegetation can grow unhindered by such trivialities as the weather.

Of course this proud defiance of nature has its limits. A flood has recently sloshed through the region leaving the locals to conduct frantic repair work. We passed them digging ditches and laying pipes. We lolled back in our comfortable minibus and wished them well as we put their efforts behind us.

We thought about these noble sons of the soil as we ate our salad that night. Well I didn’t but presumably somebody did. Or at least had vaguely positive thoughts towards farmers in general. On the positive side if there’s another flood the locals can upend their greenhouses and paddle them to safety.

Travelling Hopefully - Brief History Lesson

The trouble with anywhere in Turkey and indeed the whole Middle East is that no matter how long someone has been living in a place someone else was there first. Take Lycia where I am temporarily domiciled at the moment.

Lycia has been around in some form or another as far back as Wikipedia can remember. The Hittites knew about it at which time the Lycians had their own language and government. Then the Persians turned up and dispossessed the Lycians of such foolish notions. Only not really because the Persians were quite happy for the Lycians to go on being Lycian as long as they did what they were told. Which the Lycians dutifully did.

They fought with the Persians against the Greeks, lost and wound up as part of the empire of Athens. Apparently that wasn’t to their liking so they left, got conquered by somebody else who wound up being beaten by the Persians so Lycia wound up being Persian again. Then Alexander the Great dropped by. Once again the Lycians found that siding with the Persians against the Greeks was a losing proposition.

After that lax immigration policies resulted in most of the Lycians vanishing under a tide of Greek immigrants as Alexander’s successors settled down to rule various parts of his empire. That should be enough for any self respecting society but then the Romans came. The Romans gave Lycia to Rhodes (Why? Don’t know) then took it back again and made them a self governing protectorate. Some time later the Romans converted them to a non self governing province.

Over a thousand years went by and any surviving Lycians and their Greek replacements might thought things had settled down a bit. Then Romanus Diogenes made a mess of the Battle of Manzikert and suddenly Lycia was welcoming the Seljuk Turks. The Seljuks didn’t hang around long in the grand scheme of things and little over a century later Lycia was part of the Beylik of Teke. Never heard of the Beylik of Teke? Don’t worry it didn’t last any longer than it took the Ottoman Turks to become aware of its existence.

Now Lycia is an integral part of modern Turkey and surely will remain so because history never repeats itself over and over again. All we have to remember the Lycians is a bunch of looted sarcophagi with roofs that look like ships and the occasional ruined city. Why the ship shaped sarcophagus roofs? Apparently the sea was very important to the Lycians. Possibly because it constituted the only escape route from the people constantly overrunning their homeland.

Travelling Hopefully - A Little More Side a Good Deal More Sea

After the house of death we clambered back into our minibus and headed for Kas. Kas should have a little curly thing on the “s” but I don’t know how to do Turkish accents so adjust your pronunciation accordingly.

The Taurus Mountains pretty much hit the coast at this point so our journey to Kas (don’t forget the accent) was appropriately windy with towering hills on one side and the ocean on the other. The scenery scened impressively and I attempted to take photos out of the window with a marked lack of success. We stopped for lunch in a small town and dined amidst a German tour group. I don’t know if Alternative for Deutschland does package tours but I was rather glad when they left.

We paused at a lookout which gave us a view of the two eastern most Greek islands just a couple of miles off the coast. With that cultural experience under our belts we headed into Kas.

Kas is a small town with the standard fit out of narrow picturesque streets and alleys full of shops catering to/preying on tourists. I was very restrained and made only one modest purchase.

The next day we set out for a life on the ocean wave. Honesty compels me to admit that the life was very brief and the waves were very small. We piled onto a modest sized vessel and spent the day noodling from cove to cove, pausing to swim, photograph a submerged Lycian city and marvel at the turquoise waters. We also marvelled at tiny fish, storm runoff from a recent flood, random sarcophagi and a helicopter that was searching for a couple of missing persons. You name it we marvelled at it.

What does a submerged Lycian city look like I hear you cry? It looks like any other Lycian city that’s been relocated to the bottom of the sea by an earthquake. Possibly a lesson to build a little further inland in future.

Travelling Hopefully - Ho For the Seaside

 We left Konya and pointed the nose of the minibus towards the Mediterranean. First though we had to cross the Taurus Mountains. The Taurus Mountains are located between the Aries Hills and the Gemini Plains. I saw my first snow in Turkey clinging modestly to the peaks as we wound our way through. Scenery abounded and I photographed as much of it as I could through the window as it went by.

Once over the Taurus Mountains we stopped for gozleme at a family home nestled among the ruins of a Roman bath. The family have monetised cooking by selling a delicious lunch to passers by. Replete we headed on to Antalya, a seaside town famous for its Roman harbour and ceremonial gate memorialising the day that the emperor Hadrian dropped by for a visit. It’s called the Visitor’s Gate.

No it isn’t, it’s called Hadrian’s Gate because Hadrian couldn’t pass by a rubbish bin without naming it after himself. Hadrian was an emperor of the Antonine dynasty widely regarded as the high point of pagan Rome. There were six emperors in the Antonine dynasty only two of whom were actually related to each other. “Dynasty” being a rather broad definition applied by later historians.

Antalya is a pleasant town with the usual collection of old buildings. There’s a Seljuk mosque, Ottoman houses, a Roman harbour and a statue honouring the town’s founder back when it was the Kingdom of Pergamon. Even that doesn’t seem to be the beginning of the story as artefacts have been found which pre-date even him.

All this means there are lots of narrow, twisty streets and a bizarre variety of souvenirs to be hawked from every second shop. It also means people have been dying here for ridiculously long period of time.

As evidence of the previous point the next day we visited a charnel house. Sorry I mean a museum dedicated to the dead. The museum is planted on top of an ancient cemetery that appears to have been used from pre-Hellenic times until well after the Romans adopted (or abducted) Christianity. As is traditional in cities of this age the cemetery was discovered when the foundations were being dug for something else, in this case a convention centre.

The museum now occupies the site and displays selected pieces of the sarcophagi, ossuaries and grave goods that have been unearthed. There was no mention of what became of the convention centre. Presumably it was relocated to somewhere a little less corpse intensive. After our visit to the museum we were similarly relocated.