Hello! (At some point I am going to learn how to say it in Turkish…however, until then…)
First, down the hill from us are the remains of a Roman aquaduct -- quite fun!
Need to round out last night’s dinner before starting on the day. Returned to Hotel Bella, which has really good food, for another of their set-dinners. Lentil soup again, but this time we had roasted peppers and eggplant stuffed with meat (yes, again!) as well as a green bean salad with tomato, which was wonderful, and a “gypsy” salad (as opposed to Greek, which they also had). The gypsy salad was basically chopped tomatoes, feta, parsley and hot green peppers – R loved it, I ate around the peppers! Then R had lamb kebab while I had the spicy meatball kebab…dessert was a wonderful baklava – all washed down with a very good dry white wine. We got back to the room about 9, and I’m not sure which one of us fell asleep first – but I got something like 10 hours sleep last night! YEA!! (Sleep bank should be just about caught up on its overdrawal!)
Woke about 7 and down to breakfast at 8 a.m. Same breakfast as yesterday, and every bit as good. (Hoping to remember to take a picture of it tomorrow, as it is very attractive!) What we have found is that if we have a large breakfast around 8, we’re not at all hungry for lunch, so we again skipped it – although I did find an opportunity to sneak in a Magnum Classic – always room for that! Also, on the way out, we inquired if there was a laundry in town. Instead, they gave us a zippered laundry bag and said they would do it for us! I’m just hoping it won’t cost a small fortune, but I guess we’ll see tomorrow! Everything back and nice and clean! ALWAYS good to have clean clothes!!
So…out and about in the car about 9 a.m. Our goal today, three different sites: Priene, Miletus and Didyma.
Priene was about 50 km from Selcuk, and the first we came to. It is thought to be the original settlement in the Meander River valley (and guess where the word “meander” comes from?!) sometime around the 4th century BC. It passed through Roman and Byzantine hands and is considered the best- preserved Hellenistic (Greek) city in Ionia. It was built using a mountain as a back defense fortification, but was eventually leveled by earthquakes over time. It was a really hard and long slog UP hill to get to the site, which we were obviously sharing with several tour buses, but we were able to find some quiet places for ourselves, and enjoyed the huge pile of rubble that is now all that is left of Priene.
From there, we headed to Miletus, to see their terrific amphitheatre. It even has an 8th century fort built on top of it! Here at least there was a shop with cold water and Coke, which we enjoyed very much before climbing up to the theatre. Even though we saw tour buses, we didn’t see any groups, and virtually had the theatre to ourselves, which was great. From there we walked down the hill and toward the ruins of the town itself. We wanted to walk out to the Ionic stoa, which was still standing – problem was, this area is in a silted in coastal plain, very close to the sea, and there were great patches of swamp to get around…which we tried…We made it to the stoa, and it was beautiful, and we had it all to ourselves, but when we tried to do the circle route, we got almost all the way until we were again stopped by more swampy water!! UGH! Had to backtrack through open and plowed fields, over ancient stones with lots of thistles about … finally made it back, and decided to celebrate with a Magnum Classic…always a good thing!
Once we had recovered from Miletus, we headed straight to Didyma. Again, while there were tour buses around, when we entered, very few folks anywhere! Didyma is famous for its oracular temple, just like Delphi. There was a well where the priestess would go to get prophecies for people asking questions. (I know at Delphi it is reasoned that the noxious gases emitting from the well would cause anyone’s head to spin – thus answers to questions; and from what this particular smelt like, I would say the same would be easy here!)
At this point, we were beginning to get “ruin” fever, so headed back to Selcuk, a lovely drive on incredibly superb roads and very little traffic. Wonder if all of Turkey will have these great roads with no crowds! Back to the hotel, where we recouped a bit, and then off again on foot into town. We wanted to see the remains of the Basilica of St. John, the Evangelist. Lovely walk, again through pieces, as the basilica was destroyed in 1402 by the Mongols.
On our way back to the hotel, we ran into Nazmi and asked where we might find a cell-phone charger store, as the one we brought for my phone from Tucson wasn’t working. We had asked for directions, but instead they sent one of their guys to actually get it for us – talk about feeling guilty! He did manage to find one, but it did take a while…now we should be all up to date electronically!
Off now to dress for dinner! More later!
Okay! Quick dinner update: Great tomato soup, appetizers: artichokes, roasted peppers, eggplant mousaka and stuffed mushrooms! I had chicken again, and this time R had the spicy meatball kebab!
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xxx
Wow! Looks so amazing!
ReplyDeleteBrenda