A lovely day in Antalya!

Hello, Again! Twice in one day! Oh, the emails must be flying!

Today, our first stop was at the Antalya Museum, which opened at 9 a.m. Following the Brucato Rule: Get there when they open, we were out of the hotel a few minutes to 8, looking for the tram. As it turns out, this tram runs every half hour, so if you miss one, you have 30 minutes to wait until the next! So, Robert led us flawlessly out through Hadrian’s Gate, and across the tracks to what we hoped was the tram stop closest to the hotel. We asked a lady waiting about getting tickets, and she indicated that you get them on the tram, which works provided you have enough change with you; fares were 1.75 Trk. So, Robert went off into a shop to break a larger bill so that we would have enough change to get on. And, right on time, the two car tram pulled up and we were on board! At this point, the tram route follows the coastline, and in no time we were at the end of the line, right across the street from the museum.

Got out and had breakfast at the little outdoor plaza next door. Antalya reminds me of Chicago in one way; whoever laid out the city plan, there are parks all along the cliff overlooking the beach, with sculpture, roses, and fountains everywhere! It is really quite lovely! I am SO changing my mind about Antalya after our rather difficult introduction into the city on Sunday! For breakfast, we had fresh squeezed orange juice, R had coffee, and we had cheese sandwiches that were pressed flat, like Panini; they were excellent!

Walked over to the museum, and had a good look around their exterior garden courtyard, that is decorated with odd bits of sculpture and sarcophagi; beautiful! This is the only museum courtyard that I’ve ever seen that not only has their own flock of chickens, but includes guinea hens AND peacocks! What a clean-up committee!
Lovely museum, covering the local history from the Paleolithic, right up to the 20th century. The emphasis, though, is on the Lydian, Hellenistic and Roman periods, with a lot of sculpture from local sites. The nice thing was that English was their second language for signage, (over German!) which was terrific. We had it basically to ourselves for about an hour before the school children arrived…it sounded, seriously, like Mongol hoards were behind us, as the kids voices – which were constantly shushed, but not silenced – kept getting louder and louder! And when they finally passed us, I cannot tell you how many “hello’s!” we received from these smiling faces – and we realized that the other English word they know is: “Cheese!!” for picture taking! Quite cute and fun. We did find several signs (one included) about relics that had been smuggled illegally out of Turkey, and been returned – one piece from the Getty!

We got back to the hotel about noon, at which time I succumbed to the lure of the hamman experience…read in one book: “You’ll never be the same.” I know exactly what they mean!

So…last night we took a long walk around the old part of town, and all the way down to the harbor; truly beautiful city! First we found Hadrian’s gate, through which my favorite emperor actually passed in 130 A.D. Then we wandered to the harbor, with a quick Magnum Classic fix stop. Wanted to pass along some pictures of this lovely place!

Also included is a picture of multiple ATM’s! Here in Turkey, they’re like little boxes that gather together on a street corner – take your pick! Kinda cute, I thought!

Tomorrow morning we are out and about early, as we are going to try and stop at Catalhoyuk on our way to Mersin, which makes it a long driving day. It’s only an overnight stop – at a Hilton, nonetheless – as we push further east to Sanliurfa. We read a wonderful book about Catalhoyuk when we were researching this trip. It is a prehistoric mound that has been excavated since the 1950’s, and has produced some quite amazing information. These are basically multiple civilizations all building on top of each other over the centuries who buried their dead under the floors of their houses; quite an archeological find!

So! More later(but not today)!
m
xxxx