Happy New Year!

Mutlu Yillar (in Turkish) to all our family and friends still waiting in other time zones.

I think we may just celebrate another time zone or two.

Update: Thanks to satellite TV we have the celebration at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin (one time zone over) and of course:

David Hasselhoff is singing wearing a shirt with his face on it and talking with the hosts.  Awesome.

Izmir

Izmir is Turkey's third largest city with 4 million people and where we were for a few days around Christmas before heading up to Istanbul.  There were a few neat things here but really it's just seems like a big sprawling working class city.  It was around 65 and sunny during the day which is much different from a New England Christmas but it still got pretty chilly when the sun went down.

Here's the clock tower (the main symbol of Izmir) at sunset.  There are old ladies selling sunflower seeds all around the clock tower.

You can find the eye behind the Izmir sign just about everywhere in any form you can think of at souvenir shops.

We stumbled across a Turkish musical instrument museum that was really cool.  They gave us an ipod that had mp3's of all the different instruments being played.

The view from our hotel room.  That is a giant four lane rotary outside.  At night, it was all lit up.  At rush hour it was a mess.

For fun we took a public ferry from one part of Izmir to another and then back.  These seagulls follow the ferry the whole 15 minute trip and fight each other for bread thrown from the passengers.  Chrissy joined in on the fun.

And, ferry selfie!

Selcuk and Ephesus

Selcuk is a small town about 3 kilometers from Ephesus, which is probably the most popular ruins site in Turkey.  Selcuk has some other interesting ruins itself and we stayed at a very nice pension and met some fun people with whom we shared a bottle of wine and a couple kilos of clementines.  For chronology's sake, we were here before Bergama.

This is St. John's tomb.  There used to be a giant memorial basilica here but it's mostly ruined now.  He came here with Mary after Jesus died.  It's said that he wrote his Gospel on the hill in the distance.  There's a fortress there now, but that was built later by Ottomans.

Surprise!  Some Ephesus theater shots.  Always love the theaters.  Aspendos is the best preserved and Pergamon is the steepest, while Ephesus is the largest with a supposed capacity of 24,000.

This is the Library of Celsus in Ephesus.  It's pretty remarkable as you don't see too many buildings with multiple stories still standing.  It is by far the best sight here.

Ephesus was easily the most busy of any of the ruins we visited.  This is looking down a main street at the Library.

This section was put up not as it was originally designed but as a collection of ruins in a cubist style for some reason.

The mosaic floor of one of the terrace houses where some of the wealthy lived.

This lonely column is all that remains of the Temple of Artemis which is one of the seven wonders of the ancient world (and the second we've seen on this trip).

Bergama

Bergama has the ancient ruins of Pergamon which has two main sections.  The acropolis which is the old city on top of the hill and the asceplion which is the old healing temple, basically one of the oldest hospitals in the world.  First the acropolis:

It's kind of cool but also a bit eerie when you have the ruins completely to yourself because it's the offseason.

Pergamon has one of the steepest theaters in the world because they built it on top of the hill and had room to go up but not really to spread out.  It could still hold 10,000 people though and had a removable stage so one of the temples wouldn't be blocked when there wasn't an event.  Since it is so high up it has an awesome view (like a lot of Pergamon).  The theaters continue to be a highlight of the ruins we've seen and this one is especially great.

Again it's easy to try silly things when you are the only people around.

Notice Jim is the only theater patron, he's  that  tiny black dot near the top left. 

More theater shots (can you tell we like the theaters yet)?  Notice the city down below in the background.

A model of the Altar of Zeus or the Pergamon Altar that used to stand at this site.  The whole thing is currently in a museum in Berlin because Germans helped excavate it and made a deal to bring it to Berlin.  We didn't see it on our trip in Berlin unfortunately, because the museum closed the section with the altar for renovations for the next 5 years or so about a week before we got there.

Archway selfie!

Now the Asceplion:

Hospital is maybe a bit of a misnomer for the asceplion.  While it's true that it is a place people went to convalesce it was also the 2nd century so healing methods were a bit different.  It was basically a really fancy spa for the time.  There were lots of baths, the occasional bloodletting, and they would often diagnose by interpreting dreams.

They had a sacred fountain, too.

Here is the rare double theater shot.  From the steps of the theater at the asceplion (not 100% sure why they had one but it seems like every Roman ruin needs a theater even if it's a hospital) you can see the theater on the acropolis in the background.

We set up the camera to take this shot of us right after a large tour group of older people showed up.  We were impressed at the amount of people taking on the ruins with canes which is no easy task.  We had the place to ourself up to this point and we were just about to leave so it was cool.  Jim did make a joke about all the old people at the hospital though.

Our trip to Bergama is also an excellent opportunity to offer up some quick highlights of traveling around Turkey. The gist is that in Turkey, you are basically guarenteed to be able to get where you need to go and not have to spend a lot of money to do it. That's the upside. The downside is that you might not have any clue how it's going to work in advance, and good luck finding a schedule. Just flag down a bus, wave your arms, holler the name of your destination and go. 

Case in point. To get to Bergama, we tried to use the elite bus services, but their representative wouldn't sell us a ticket. She said we could buy one at the central bus station though, and no, we couldn't  take her shuttle there because we did not have tickets from her company, Metro. So out to the street to flag down a city bus, the 302 to the Otogar ( central bus station). But because this is a city bus, and not a dolmus, you can't  flag it anywhere, you have to find a stop.  Which took some careful observation, but we managed to catch the bus. But we needed a tap card to pay the fare, oops. No worries though, the bus driver negotiated for us with a local who we paid, and she tapped her card for us. Get to the Otogar which is bigger than some of the airports we've traveled through and walk up to the first ticket desk we find. Bergama? I ask. Upstairs. Up a shady stairwell, to the 2nd floor of the Otogar, and we can tell we're  on the minibus level. But they're  labeled and we walk up to the one labeled Bergama ( run by the Metro bus company btw), Bergama? I ask again. Yes, hop in we're leaving  in 10 mins, and we're off. During the 2 hour journey, our mini bus host ( that's  right, in this country  buses come with drivers and hosts that provide coffee and treats), as is typical in Turkey, hops out along the highway yelling our destination , and people get on and off at these undesignated locations of their choosing. We arrived successfully  in Bergama and we're told if we wanted a ride back, to come back to the small bus station and use  Metro again. So we had our delightful day, as you can see, and as the sun went down, we headed back to the bus station, and asked, Bergama? Yup, leaving in 2 mins, get on. Back in Izmir, we renavigated  the massive Otogar and wiggled our way onto that free Metro shuttle we should have been able to use in the morning. 

 So you see, we got where we needed to go, and spent less than $20 to do it, but we had no time table, no perception of how it would work, and it took a city bus, 2 minibusses and a shuttle bus to do it. 

Fun with Roman Ruins- Statues edition

Merry Christmas!

In a country where Jesus walked, but 98% of the population  is Muslim, we managed to find a little  pseudo  Christmas spirit. Christmas Eve dinner at the Swissotel Izmir, Turkey.

Missing you, love and good cheer to all. Merry Christmas !

Bodrum

Bodrum was our second coastal town in Turkey after Antalya.  It's on the southwest coast on the Aegean Sea and unlike Antalya the weather was absolutely gorgeous.  65 and sunny, which for us in December is amazing.  It's a lot easier to enjoy your time in that kind of weather.

Bodrum is a big diving site (more on this later).

Would you like some cash from a giant orange?  Clementines are everywhere here and they are so cheap it's insane.  You can get a kilo (2.2 pounds) for 1 turkish lira (about 43 cents).  That means you could get one of those 5 pound crates you see in the grocery store in Boston (usually for about 8 bucks) for a dollar or so.  Needless to say, we've eaten a lot (a lot a lot) of clementines.

Bodrum's ancient name was Halicarnassus.  This is the Myndos Gate which is the only part of the old city gates that are still standing.  Now it's just hanging next to some shops on one side of the city.

I mentioned before that I've really enjoyed the ancient theaters we've seen.  This one is just on the side of a major road which is a bit strange.  Unfortunately, you can't climb up it.

Things you see everywhere: scooters and stray cats.  Here they are together.

These shots are from the tomb of Mausolos which is one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.  The models make it look really impressive but it's more or less a big pit now.  The roses are nice, though.  Also, it is where we get the word mausoleum from.

Here we are at the Museum of Underwater Archaeology (which is in the the Bodrum Castle of the Knights of St. John).  It's a really cool place.  Bodrum is one of the main sites for diving to old shipwreck sites and as a result it is the perfect place for a museum like this.  Behind us are amphoras which are ancient jugs that sailors used to transport wine, olive oil, and just about whatever else they were trading.  The museum has some really interesting finds from shipwrecks as old as 1300 BC.

Just popping a squat in an ancient latrine...

I mentioned the museum was in an old castle.  It's delightful to stroll between exhibits when you are in a castle and have views out to the town like this.

Finally, we strolled uphill a ways to the old Bodrum windmills and to get another great view of town.  It was also the site of another cribbage duel where I was victorious.

Pamukkale

After our adventures in Göreme we took another overnight 10 hour bus ride to Pamukkale which is another famous site of some old ruins and weird natural wonders.  I found the second overnight trip to be easy as our seats had HD TV screens and while none of the movies were in English, I ended up playing a dumb addictive game called Turbokids for about 4 hours and then slept most of the rest of the ride.  There is no wicked grumpy picture of me our first morning there.

The main ruins here are the old city of Hierapolis.  This is the main street.

Here's Chrissy sitting in the cathedral.

This is the tomb of Philip, one of the twelve apostles.  It was discovered to be his tomb during excavations in 2011, only three years ago.

This is where St. Philip was martyred, not far from  his tomb.  The sun was shining bright behind me when I took this picture.  Chrissy is lounging up ahead.

Here's the theater at Hierapolis.  The theaters are always one of my favorite ruins.  This one is still in pretty good shape.

Of course we had to play some ruins cribbage.

The real wonder of Pamukkale lies just below the ruins of Hierapolis with the travertines.  They are terraced hot springs leading back down to the town.  The water contains lots of calcium carbonate which gives the whole thing its white color.  Pamukkale means "cotton castle" in Turkish.

You can walk down a section of the travertines but you aren't allowed to wear shoes.  Since it was December and around sunset our feet got a little chilly.

It's OK though because you can stop and warm them up in the running hot spring water.

The whole place is really remarkable and unlike anything I've seen before.

Here's a close up of the ground.  It's nicer to try and walk on the smoother parts if possible.

Also near Pamukkale are the ruins of Laodicea which is mentioned in the book of revelation.  Here I am at the temple.

Their theater is in considerably worse shape than the others we've seen.

Finally, in another part of town is the red travertine.  Same idea as the white, but way smaller (this is basically the whole thing) and different minerals mean a different color.