Tour - Day 7 - Antalya area (Perge, Aspendos)

My Lonely Planet guide book says “If you love Greek and Roman ruins you will be thrilled to learn that Turkey has more of them than Greece or Italy.”  We started our day at Perge, which had its golden age during the 2nd and 3rd centuries BC under the Romans. You can see a theatre, a stadium, the massive Roman and Hellenistic gates and streets where markets and homes were.  (That's Jon, Donna, Lynn and Warren in the picture. I'm there too, behind Donna.)

Below is part of their bath system. In this photo part of the floor caved in so you can see how it worked. Water was heated and the heated water and steam was sent below the floor to make the room steamy and hot. There were three rooms - the first was the cold room (farthest from the fire), next the warm room and finally the hot room. Pretty ingenious!

Look at the beautiful blue sky Jon ordered just for us. Can you believe the color? It really was this blue! and not a cloud in sight anywhere.

We walked a bit where there was remains of an aquaduct.

From there we drove to Aspendos which has the best preserved Roman theatre of the ancient world. It was constructed during the 2nd century and restored during the 13th century. This theatre is still used sometimes for classical concerts and they say the accoustics are still fantastic.

Here is our merry band of travelers: Lynn, Warren, Donna, me and David. Armando took the picture and Fred was wandering around at the top of the theatre taking photos.

During Ottoman times some extra walls were added and it was used as an oasis stop similar to the one we stopped at yesterday.

After lunch (trout caught in the surrounding mountain streams) we went back to our hotel and then took a walk with Jon through the old port which is Roman and quite interesting with winding little streets and views of the Mediterranean and the little harbor with pleasure boats and a shipwreck next to the city wall.

See the ship wreck below on the lower right side next to the cliffs.  If you click on the picture it will get bigger.

Random thoughts:
Armando has been most impressed by the gas stations here.

We’ve eaten lunch at two of them. Instead of the usual truck stop fare (and these aren’t really truck stops - more like tourist stops) you get a buffet lunch, or a great selection from the menu. And usually there are some little shops - remember a few days ago when we could buy dried fruit, nuts, seeds, anything you wanted, in bulk.

This morning we got on the bus, when Jon got on he said good morning and we all said, in unison “good morning Jon”. Then Lynn said to him “Aren’t you glad you are stuck with us for another week?” and Jon said “You are getting more like Japanese all the time.” Hmmmm!!!

More animals - camels.  We’ve seen a few, always all dressed up for tourists. If the guy sees you with the camera, he wants 1 euro to take the camel’s photo, a couple euros if you are in the photo or for 10 euro or so, you can sit on the camel and if you are lucky he will stand up and let you ride him around the parking lot.

This area is filled with green houses growing all sorts of flowers and vegetables. Oh, and did you know that tulips are the national flower and that they originated here? Apparently one of the sultans gave some plants to the King of the Netherlands and the rest is history. Below is an Ottoman tulip - you see the design all over the place on tiles and fabrics. You might even see one on a quilt some day!

At lunch today we had pomegranate vinegar - yum!!! We mixed it with a little olive oil and dipped our bread in it, then we just put some more vinegar and forgot about the oil. There are pomegranates all over Turkey and many little stands have fresh squeezed orange or pomegranate juice. I had some fresh juice the other day and it was wonderful too.  I’m hoping that our local international market in Memphis will have pomegranate vinegar, but just in case, I bought a bottle.