Friday, Jun 18th:
Very long travel day Friday-- full flight from Boston to Frankfurt, a layover, then flight to Istanbul, then long layover, and finally the regional flight from Istanbul to Dalaman. Whew.
There was a weird episode in Frankfurt while we were walking to the gate of the Istanbul flight: we came around the corner and encountered a bunch of policemen, with the corridor taped off as a "Do Not Cross" line. We couldn't get any real information out of them, and after a very confusing muddle, we actually had to wind up going outside the terminal (which included going through customs), walking down to locate the other outside entrance to the gate, and going back through security. Luckily the lines were not too long and we were able to get through in time, but it was a little nerve-wracking.
In the Istanbul airport we met up with the other members of the gang except for Richard and Jesse (they had arrived at the boat earlier in the afternoon). The flight to Dalaman was a short one, maybe 45 minutes. We finally made it to the harbor where the boat was moored around 7:50pm. The boat at first seemed bigger than I expected-- 100 tons, 25 meters long, we were told. On the other hand, the two boats moored next to it were even bigger.
The cabins were on the small side; ours had room for a double bed, but no real place to stow our suitcases, so we wound up unpacking them and stuffing them into the bathroom (which turned out to be a good deal bigger than I had expected).
Couple of shots of the boat as we first encountered it:
Ethan and the other boys spent a while clambering around to explore the boat and get a feel for it:
We met Michael, our guide for the trip, and talked over the details and logistics. A picture of the route:
Tradition apparently has it on gulet cruises that the cook doubles as anchor man. Here is a picture of our chef getting ready to work the anchor winch....
Sunday June 20th:
Slept until around 7:30, then breakfast at 8:30 or so. The canonical Turkish breakfast seems to consist of bread, jam or honey, olives, vegetables (tomato and/or cucumbers), and Turkish white cheese (similar to Feta but less salty and a little softer). We had a very quick session running around town (which I spent locating postcards and stamps so as to send off a quick card to Lydia), then around 9:45 we cast off and set sail. Beautiful sunny weather, not too hot. We went down the western coast of the Bay of Fethiye, great views. The view off to the east was especially nice -- foothills parading off into the haze leading finally up to huge mountains (still with a little snow) barely visible in the distance.
Here we are underway on Sunday. The front part of the boat had a series of covered foam pads up under the sail, which was a good place to hang out and watch the scenery:
Admiring the coastline:
This shot is of the mountains out to the east of the gulf of Feithe. You can't see it especially well from this photograph, but way off in the distance are the Taurus mountains, which according to Michael run upwards of 11 thousand feet.
We moored at a small bay and had our first swim, which was most excellent. Here is a shot of the surroundings:
Fantastically clear water, so you can see all sorts of stuff on the bottom even though you are swimming around many meters above. Interesting fish; not very big, but some of them quite colorful. Also pipefish, which are a lot of fun to look at: The water was cool but not cold, and very salty (definitely not used to that! kept on accidentally getting it in my mouth). Ridiculously steep drop-off in a bunch of places; the spot where we were anchored was only around 30 or 40 meters from the shore, but it dropped off so sharply you couldn't see the bottom. On the coastline, gray and weathered rocks with scrubby pine trees, very dry and formidable-looking.
After the swim and a nice lunch, we packed up and headed farther down the coastline and moored in another small bay at around 3pm. Here we are parked and getting ready to head out:
Disembarking from the boat in preparation for the hike to Lydae:
Getting prepared to start our hike up to Lydae:
After a second swim, we slathered on our sunblock, put on the hiking boots and headed off up into the hills (after being ferried in batches to the shore in the dingy) to see our first archeological site, the area called "Lydae". Slanting up into the hills from the beach at the end of the bay was an ancient road, looking really more like a hiking trail at first (not easily visible from the shore). We climbed up sharply and out onto a ridge. Torward the middle of the hike it finally became apparent that it was really a "road": where the trail ran across a section of smooth bedrock, you could see that someone had laboriously cut grooves into the rock to keep wagon/cart wheels from skidding. At the top of the ridge we came upon a substantial ruined stone building overlooking a small valley.
The tomb was interesting in a bunch of ways, but most interesting to me was that because the site it so inaccessible (you can only get to it by boat, then up a very steep small path), it hasn't been officially excavated. This didn't mean that it was totally untouched (since there are still people living nearby who come by to "borrow" stones), but it did mean that the big sprawl of debris surrounding the building (from where it had fallen down) was still in place, so you could wander around and speculate about which bits came from where, etc.
According to Michael, the archeological record showed that Lydae had been populated for much of the Hellenistic era; the buildings and ruins were all down in a small valley, hidden from view. The tomb, on the other hand, was built in the Roman era (100AD ish?) and was planted right smack on the ridge above the valley, making it visible from the ships passing along on the Bay of Fethiye. After the tomb is built, the archeological record more or less stops, so the speculation is that once people could see Lydae from below, it became the object of attention from pirates and other marauders who happened to be passing by, alas.
Lydae: here we've just come out over the ridgeline and gotten our first site of the ruined tomb that dominates the landscape there.
Interior of the ruined tomb building:
A field of debris down the slope from the ruined tomb. There was all sorts of stuff lying around on the ground here.
Hunting for interesting enscriptions:
Aha! Something written here...
Michael helping Ethan to decipher an enscription:
This is a cistern in the valley just below the tomb. This particular one is still actively used:
A photograph of the younger generation-- Paul, Ethan, Sam, Jeremy, and Jesse:
After exploring a bit more and looking at the ruins lower down in the valley, we packed up and headed back down the trail to the boat. Very hot-- we brought along quite a lot of water (and we definitely needed it). After that it was another swim and then another superb dinner.
Helping Michael with the tour-guiding duties was Erol, a young man from Turkey. Erol hit it off right away with Ethan and the rest of the boys by demonstrating his expertise on card games; he learned some of the games that they were playing and taught them a couple of interesting new Turkish games as well. It was interesting to talk to Erol about life in Turkey and get his perspective on his studies (he has an engineering degree and is looking for work right now). Turkey apparently has compulsory national service (a year) for men, so he had some interesting stories about that as well.
Monday June 21:
Cruising on our way to the next site:
So far we haven't really had any real wind to speak of, so the gulet has been getting around on motor power alone. According to Michael the wind conditions have to be just right for sailing (wind speed within a specific range), so most of the travel is done via the engines. The actual motoring all happens during the day; once it gets dark we pretty much stay put.
I am enjoying the Turkish breakfasts; at home I've gotten into such a rut when it comes to the morning meal, basically "one starchy thing plus one fruity thing plus a cup of coffee"-- here it's a pleasant change to have things like cheese, vegetables, olives, eggs, etc. This morning the cook also made crepes and served them with the Turkish version of "Nutella" (you can imagine how quickly those disappeared).
Lengthy cruise this morning, and the ocean was a bit more choppy, so some of the gang were a bit queasy (nothing serious, though, I'm happy to say). We arrived around noon, then had a good long swim and a nice lunch. A little later in the afternoon a riverboat (long and skinny with room for maybe 30 people?) came cruising around a bend and came over to collect us to head off to the next site (Kaunos).
This shot was near the mouth of the river coming down from Kaunos. This is a sea turtle, which some enterprising fishermen have managed to attract by taking crabs and dangling them into the water from a fishing line:
First view of Kaunos. The main part of the city is off to the left of the rise, hidden by the ridge:
Kaunos was an interesting site; it with a very intriguing history. The city itself sits on the side of a large dome-shaped stone outcropping that overlooks the river;
As usual Michael did a superb job of introducing us to the history of Kaunos. By virtue of its location, it was ideally located to control trade and movement along the river-- anyone who wanted to ship things down the river to the sea (or bring them up from the sea to the areas north) would have to pass by and presumably pay taxes and duties. The farmland to the north (river valley) was incredibly rich and fertile, and the area itself also had a great deal of timber, fruit, and then on top of that, the city also exported very high quality salt. This meant that Kaunos became incredibly wealthy as a result of all the trade. In spite of all these blessings, Kaunos was also somewhat "cursed" -- because of all the nearby swamps, there were malaria-carrying mosquitoes, which meant that people living in the city sooner or later came down with the disease. According to Michael, many of the written records of the day describe the citizens as looking sickly and somewhat "green". Of course, they didn't know what was causing the problem at the time, but the leading medical authorities after much consideration eventually decided that the problem was due to eating too much fruit (heh). The city was incredibly prosperous in spite of the malaria, and continued to do well right up through the Roman period. Eventually, however, silt from the river filled in too much of the city's harbor, causing it to be "bypassed", in turn leading to an economic collapse.
The ruins at the city were well excavated, and there were a lot of interesting things to see. The wharf area featured a "stoa" (long series of low buildings arranged linearly along a wall) and a superb "fountain house" where people at the port would come to buy water. On the side of the fountain house: reams and reams of written inscriptions. According to Michael, the writing all deals with tariffs and duties: how much money you need to pay for this or that as it gets moved up or down the river.
An inscription from the former wharf / port area in Kaunos:
Here is the fountain house at Kaunos (which has been partially reconstructed):
Here is the interior of the fountain house. You could see the channels in the lip of the cistern walls where people had dragged buckets up after filling them-- that was kind of neat.
It's hard to make it out from the photograph, but the side of the fountain house is absolutely covered with writing:
We looked at an interesting temple in the middle part of the old city; it was a fascinating "agglomeration" of different religious stuff. Bits and pieces of the stonework and writing showed that the place had been (at various times) a temple to the Greek gods, to the Roman gods, and also a Byzantine church. The very inner part of the temple was also at one point devoted to the original Kaunos cult, which apparently worshipped a pyramid-shaped rock (this was what they put on their coins for a long time). So the building was a veritable religious "layer cake", with traditions piled one on top of the other century after century. Here is the outer Roman-area portion of the temple:
and here is the interior of the temple. The circular portion of it is where the Kaunians (Kaunites? Kaunfellows?) had their original cult altar.
Hallo, a visitor:
Kaunos also has an absolutely huge ruined Roman bath-- the place was enormous, with huge arched windows and very tall ceilings. The ruined bath was pretty beat up, but it was still very impressive. After that we saw an interesting round stone platform-- as of yet nobody has really been able to figure out what it was, even though it clearly occupied a position of prominence in the city. Finally, there was the city theater, which was in very good condition and interesting to clamber around. The theater itself was another indirect indicator of the economic strength of Kaunos: unlike many other theaters which are almost entirely built up against hillsides, this one was only partially built up against the hill, meaning that they had to build immense (and costly) stonework to support the right hand side of the rear of the theater.
This is looking out the window of the Roman bath building. Enormous building, very prominently placed:
This is a view from the upper part of the city looking down into what was originally the harbor of Kaunos. The river has entirely silted it in, so it's now basically a pond, but at the height of Kaunos this was a very active port area.
Here is the mystery circular structure: nobody really knows what it was, in spite of the fact that it occupies a very prominent spot in the city. Lots of speculation over various possibilities...
The city theater:
These walls are from the Byzantine period, where Kaunos had a military garrison but not much else:
Another view of the old harbor at Kaunos:
And the theater at Kaunos again:
A fig tree. This shot reminded me a lot of our 2009 trip to the Croation coast, where we saw fig trees almost everywhere we looked:
We walked down on the opposite side of the city to pick up the river boat again, and also to get a view of the stone tombs carved into the hillside off to the northwest (another impressive thing about the site). The tombs were apparently not excavated until the 1970's, which of course meant that they had been completely emptied out, alas.
This is on the river just up from Kaunos, where we had a view of the tombs cut into the stone of the cliff face:
After that it was back down the river, across the bay, and over to the boat for a swim again. I had been worried when we signed up for the trip that it would be hard to get enough exercise, but it turned out that all the opportunities to swim have mostly done the trick, which was nice.
Finished off the day with another superb dinner from the chef, this time grilled chicken and meatballs. Crafty fellow the chef; we noticed that he managed to recruit the captain of our river boat taxi to bring him fresh bread and vegetables. The mezze dishes tonight were superb-- all sorts of lovely stuff. There was even a dish with celeriac root (looked as though he had sauteed or boiled it and then served it in a light vinaigrette). Yum. Dessert was a bread pudding of some sort of semolina, currants, and apple (very mild flavor, but tasty).
One tends to think about archeology as having its heyday back in the 19th century, when various people from museums in Berlin and London were shuttling around the globe opening up fabulous tombs and temples and carting off the contents to the seats of their respective empires-- that is, the tombs and temples that hadn't already been vacuumed clean by bandits and robbers of one sort or another in the intervening millenia. According to Michael, there is still a significant danger of tomb robbing (and such things) today. He described an episode just in the last couple of years in which robbers were able to locate and rob the tomb of Hekatomnus (father of Mausolus, of "Mausoleum" fame). After this crew figured out where the tomb was, they lined up some very heavy duty power tools (including a water-cooled stone drill/saw with a diamond cutting surface, and were able dig their way into the tomb and virtually clean it out (it was apparently crammed with interesting stuff). They were caught only because they broke off a piece of the sarcophagus and started to "shop it around" to see if anyone wanted to buy it, however they picked the wrong person to show it to. It was pretty clear that they had to have had some sort of protection/collusion/collaboration from the local people who lived there, since you can't exactly run a huge noisy saw like that without someone hearing. What's worse, the water used to cool the saw leaked in the tomb as they were drilling into it, filling it up, and as a result, virtually wiping out all of the painted surfaces within the tomb. What's more, although some of the perpetrators were arrested, they haven't yet been convicted, and there is some suspicion that they are getting help/protection from someone with "connections". Very depressing.
Tuesday June 22:
We were discussing various ocean-related things this morning, and Michael told me something that I didn't know this morning: there are no tides in the Mediterranean sea (!). It never occurred to me that this could be the case, but in retrospect, I suppose it makes sense (given the semi-enclosed nature of the sea).
Today after a swim and breakfast, we motored along down the coast to a small inlet near the ancient site of Phoenix. Here we are on the way:
This is the small bay/inlet outside Phoenix. The shacks/outbuildings on the right hand side were left behind after they finished up an underwater excavation of the wreck on the ocean floor there. The far western side (off to the left) is where we moored our boat.
The inlet is interesting; narrow entrance, sort of keyhole shaped, really more of a natural harbor than a bay. The shoreline at the middle part of the inlet is extremely steep; according to Michael it has some interesting qualities. The harbor is also quite dangerous if you moor your boat in the wrong place-- you can get extremely strong gusts of wind coming from the west down off the mountain, and so if you are unlucky enough to have selected a mooring that isn't hugging the shore, your boat can get yanked right off its anchor and deposited onto the rocks at the eastern edge of the inlet. This apparently has happened over and over again throughout the years, and so there are literally dozens and dozens of ancient wrecked boats at the bottom of the sea floor there: Greek, Roman, Byzantine, you name it. This inlet is also noteworthy in that it's the site where true "underwater archeology" was born-- they did the first real excavation/dig of an underwater shipwreck here.
Our archeological site visit was to the ancient town/outpost of Phoenix, which is way up on the top of a hill about three miles from the inlet (a small van had been arranged to bring us up to the trailhead). After getting out of the van we had a rather hot/sweaty and very steep hike up to the main part of the city. Incredibly bleak/rocky/dry landscape-- it's hard to imagine anyone being able to live on such terrain.
View from the road on the shuttle bus ride up to Phoenix:
The peninsula that Phoenix is on is directly north of the island of Rhodes, which was one of the major military and commercial powerhouses of the Hellenistic era. Rhodes was worried (for good reason) about being invaded by the other various neighboring powers, so they took great pains to build up a sort of "perimeter", e.g. to provide warning in case of an attack, and to provide the first line of defense in addition. Phoenix started out as an independent entity, but then eventually was incorporated into the empire of Rhodes; the people there were given full citizenship and could travel freely between Phoenix and the main island of Rhodes. The town was strategic in that it guarded the port of Loryma.
Phoenix is also an ancient site that hasn't been excavated at all; according to Michael, the reason is that it would simply be too difficult. Because the town is located high up on a ridge, it's been very easy for people who want to "borrow" stone blocks to simply walk up, pry off the stones they need, and roll them down the hill to repurpose them. This means that anyone who wants to do a virtual "reconstruction" of Phoenix would have to examine every stone block within miles and miles, making it a hugely difficult problem.
Very hot in this afternoon, so we are trying to make the best of the shade:
Hiking down after seeing the ruins at Phoenix:
This cricket/locust/grasshopper had very interesting coloration:
Very distinctive pyramidal stones here-- you see them all over the place (and they are apparently unique to Phoenix). Some are 2-step pyramids, others 3-step, and there are even some 4- and 5-step pyramids as well. Nobody knows exactly what they were or how they were used -- it's a big mystery.
More peculiar pyramid-shaped stones:
Wednesday June 23:
Off on another cruise....
Very short cruise today down the peninsula to the harbor at Loryma, also another outpost of Rhodes. The history of Loryma is interesting. In 306 BC Demetrius, one of the powerful kings of the era decided to invade Rhodes; he gathered an enormous fleet, an army, and a good deal of seige equipment and he used the port of Loryma as the staging area for his attack. The seige apparently lasted for months; the forces within the main city of Rhodes managed to hold out for quite some time. Demetrius might well have succeeded if not for the fact that the other regional powers of the time caught onto the fact that the army and navy of Demetrius were tied up attacking Rhodes, and so they started making opportunistic attacks on other parts of his domain (which were now less heavily guarded). Demetrius had to give up and retreat; he hammered out a deal in which Rhodes agreed that he had "beaten" them (so as to save face); he then withdrew his forces, leaving behind the siege engines. The forces of Rhodes came out and discovered the equipment, stripped it down, and used the metal to build the Colossus of Rhodes, an enormous statue of the god Helios, which became one of the wonders of the ancient world.
After the dust had settled, Rhodes decided that it might be in their interest to take over the port at Loryma and fortify it to prevent any similar invasions in the future, so they built a stone fortress on the small ridgelike peninsula overlooking the harbor.
The fortress is still very impressive-- huge, thick stone walls with stones carefully placed to strengthen them again artillery attacks. Two layers, an outside layer of finished stone blocks, an inside layer, and then the space in between the filled with rubble. This way of constructing walls apparently made them much more resistant to attacks; the force of the blow from an attacking shot would be more evenly distributed, requiring more blows to breach the wall. Along the wall were a succession of small square towers, each presumably holding a catapult to target boats in the harbor. The catapults used here employed torsion bars according to Michael. This was a new idea at the time, just been invented around the time that the fort was constructed; it increased the range of the machines substantially. The troops stationed there also supposedly had a big chain that they could run across the harbor just under the waterline, which made it even more difficult to invade/capture.
First look at the fort in the Loryma harbor:
Another shot of the fort:
Clambering up on one of the artillery towers:
Overlooking the harbor:
Here Michael is giving one of his explanations of the surroundings:
There were several of these contraptions at the fort-- they look very specifically designed and very utilitarian, but nobody is really sure what they were. Something for pressing grapes? Grinding something? We can only speculate:
The fortress was very nice climb and provided some beautiful views an clambering opportunities. We also had fun trying to find a "missing" enscription (an enscribed stone block that one of Michael's friends had told him about, one which he had not been able to locate yet). Here it is after we finally found it; the interesting thing is that we walked right by it any number of times before someone noticed that it was there:
Closer up:
We did also have some misfortune, however: on the hike down, Joanie lost her footing and fell, injuring her knee rather badly (she was basically immobilized, alas). Erol had to carry her back to the boat, since it was way too painful for her to walk.
A couple of dishes from the dinner table:
A main dish:
After this we cruised west past the island of Simi and on to the next site, that of Knidos. Simi was another rags-to-riches-to-rags story; Michael told us the details while we cruised by. The golden age for Simi was during the Ottoman empire, where the islands became rich off trade in sponges (which at that time were apparently very valuable). They also maintained a fleet of super-fast sailing vessels that the Ottomans used as a sort of mail service, and in return the empire gave them extremely favorable tax status. Things went downhill for them in the 19th century, however. First was the development of diving suits, which meant that any old shmoe with money to buy a suit could dive for sponges (as opposed to highly skilled/trained skin divers); this led almost immediately to the sponge beds being fished out of existence. Second was the war of Greek independence in 1821: Simi chose to side with the Greeks, however in the negotiations during the aftermath of the war, their islands were "traded" back to the Ottomans in exchange for other islands closer to the main part of Greece. Needless to say, after this point the Ottomans were no longer especially nice to Simi any more. End result: economic collapse, with most people abandoning the islands. They are now experiencing something of a comeback as a tourist destination; Europeans from the north have been buying old wrecked houses and restoring them, so the place is now starting to look much better.
After motoring clear of Simi, the captain decided that winds looked favorable, so he and the rest of the crew decided to get the boat ready for sailing. Very exciting! The crew ran around at an incredible pace tying up this, untying that, getting the portholes closed, clearing the decks, and before you knew it we were sailing along. The captain opted to use the forward main sail (the rear main sail was still tied up) and then a spinnaker in the front. It was a glorious day for a sail-- we had a nice 10-minute run zooming along with the sails snapping and the salt water spraying around.
Out comes the main sail for the first time:
... and the spinnaker:
Admiring the sails:
Things began to go a little wonky after that, however: the reel/winch thing at the bottom of the spinnaker started misbehaving-- for a period of about 5 minutes most of the crew was out there hanging off the bowsprit trying to get the thing to unfreeze and behave properly (this was preventing the boat from coming about). The captain turned the boat and held it into the wind so that they could work on it more easily, but it was still giving trouble. A little later on things got even weirder: there was a big gust of wind, and we heard a sort of loud "ping" from the rear of the boat. It turned out that the spinnaker line had been pulled so hard that it had literally yanked off the fitting that it had been attached to (the line stayed put, however, since it was tight to a post as a backup). In all the confusion the spinnaker itself wound up being slightly damaged from getting thrashed around (we could see a small hole in it). Bummer! Definitely a bad hair day for the captain and crew; he eventually turned on the engine after things were under control and we went back to our previous motor-driven existence. Still, it was fun while it lasted.
Here is a shot of the captain trying hard to keep things under control while the crew wrestles with the spinnaker hardware, which was misbehaving at the time:
This is a shot of the hardware that broke while we were sailing. You can see that the metal fitting was ripped right open by the rope (I'm actually somewhat surprised that the metal bent as opposed to having the weld give way):
This shows the other side of the fixture, which gives you an idea of what it the opposite side looked like before it was pulled apart:
Erol has been continuing to teach the boys Turkish card games. There is one that Ethan in turn showed to me that I think is pretty neat. You play with two people; prior to the deal, the non-dealer is asked to select a trump suit. The dealer then gices each player 8 piles of two cards (the bottom one face down, and the top one face up). The remaining 20 cards are then split evenly between the two players, however the you can't look at or use your 10 "down" cards until you take a trick. The dealer leads (choosing from the cards he has already face up), which is a big advantage, since he can see what the other guy has available. At the end of the game you count tricks: if you take more than 15 tricks you get a point for each one over, and if you take less than 10 tricks you lose a point for each one under, or something along these lines. I thought it was an interesting game, very "bimodal", since there is this initial period where the non-dealer is playing a sort of holding action to try to limit the damage until he/she can take a trick and pick up the pack of down cards.
Another knockout dinner from the chef this evening, the main this time was some sort of lamb dish (shanks, perhaps?) served on a bed of eggplant puree. Really every meal has been superb, we all have been feeling especially spoiled.
A photo of Sam manning the kayak (which was a very popular toy on this trip-- heavy competition for kayak time). I meant to remind Sam that you're supposed to sit on it, not stand on it, but I never did get around delivering my admonishment:
Ethan entering the water:
Thursday June 24:
Sleeping on this boat has been a somewhat frustrating puzzle. The cabin that Ethan and I were staying in was the closest one to the engine room, which has been the source of some trouble. The first evening on the boat we were reasonably comfortable-- we were able to open the portholes in our bedroom and the attached bathroom. The next night, however, it was very hot, so the captain turned on the generator at a little before 10 could run the cabin air conditioners. The generator was very noisy, however, so I closed our cabin porthole (to reduce the racket to a reasonable level), but then woke up a couple of hours later-- the cabin was absolutely baking (took a while to cool off even with everything open). The next night I decided to ignore the noise and tried opening everything from the get-go, but that had its problems as well: the exhaust from the generator was right outside our window, so we started to get engine exhaust coming in the porthole on the breeze (ugh). I also experimented a little with the air conditioner, but it was tricky to get that right-- it increased the noise level even more, and it didn't really do any good unless all the doors and windows were shut tight (since the AC goes off at 11, you have to wake up again to open everything up unless you want the cabin turning into an oven). After a lot of additional experimentation I settled on keeping the cabin door propped open, the porthole in the cabin closed (to avoid the exhaust problem) and the porthole in the bathroom open (to provide some ventilation). Still not great, but better than before. I think our cabin must have been the only one to have these sorts of problems, since when I looked town the hall all the other cabins had their doors closed from what I could tell.
Side trip this morning to the small city of Dascha for water and provisions; we got a chance to wander around and explore on shore a bit.
A photo of the boats tied up at Dacha:
Interesting stone formation along the coast:
After that we motored down along the coast to the west to the ancient city of Knidos. Knidos turns out to have been a bit like Kaunos in that it rose to power largely on the basis of its incredibly strategic location. The city itself is built just up the hill from two lovely natural harbors: a larger one (which became the commercial harbor) and a smaller one off to the side (used as a military harbor). Ships traveling from east/west would pass by and take on supplies/water, and also shelter from the winds; this section of the coast is apparently difficult to navigate purely by sail if the wind is blowing in the wrong direction. In contrast to Kaunos (which grew up gradually over many year), this city was designed and built more or less from scratch (the local ruler decided to move his city from inland here to the coast). The city used very extensive terracing in order to allow building on the hillsides; a lot of the remaining walls and stone works are actually there to support the terraces themselves. At the bottom of the hillside you have three big items: a theater (facing the harbor), a huge temple for Dionysus (now mainly just foundations) and a very well-preserved "stoa", which is a long linear set of stalls or rooms that was originally enclosed/covered with a collonaded walkway. Knidos has been extensively excavated according to Michael; through various archeological detective tricks, they were able to determine that a number of the stoa rooms were used for ceremonial meals (this from the fact that the space between the walls was filled with discarded eating implements :-). Moving up the hillside there is a whole series of temples to one god or another, including a spectacular ruined temple to Apollo, a shrine to Athena, and a mysterious round temple that people are still arguing over.
The temple to Apollo has a lot of stone work from the original altar still present; Michael gave us a long explanation of how sacrifices were performed and arranged back in the Hellenistic era, which was very intriguing. Lots of very specific rules about how things were supposed to be performed, who got what after the sacrifice was completed, who participated and how.
Michael also had a lot of funny stories to tell about the people doing the archeological work at the site. Most of the archeological work done at the site of Knidos was headed up by a certain Iris Cornelia Love, a highly improbable figure-- the heir of the Guggenheim fortune, fabulously wealthy, and a jet-setter of the first class (she apparently invited all sorts of celebrities to the dig). Her obsession was with the statue of Aphrodite (by the sculptor Praxiteles) that had been placed in a temple in Knidos. The statue was incredibly famous in the ancient world; lots of people wrote about it, and there were many copies made, but the location of the actual temple within the Knidos ruins was unknown. Iris Love decided that she would be the one to find it; she led the excavations for many years and presided over the discovery of most of the big hillside temples. Her archeological "style" was a bit weird, however-- maybe a little heavy on the backhoe as opposed to the brush (rumor has it that she also used dynamite). You have to be very careful walking around the site due to the fact that it is absolutely riddled with deep holes that she dug all over the place, hoping to find something interesting.
The Turkish government eventually caught onto the fact that she was being a bit rough with the site and showed her the door. The most recent archeologist to work the site, a Turkish professor named Ramazan Ozgan, also got into hot water as well. He spent a lot of time excavating the stoa; partway through, the government decided that it would be a good idea to reconstruct a bunch of the pillars from the collonade (so as to give people a sense for what it looked like), so they asked him to supervise. He refused, saying that if he put up just the pillars they would be vulnerable to wind and would get blown down during the winter storms. The government over-ruled him; the pillars went up, and sure enough, one blew down during the winter. The government then accused him of negligence and pulled his license-- he is now suing in court to recover it. Story.
The stoa at Knidos:
Ethan surveying the ruins of the temple of Dionysus at Knidos:
More photos of the stoa; Michael explaining how it was used:
Some of the bits and pieces from the excavating work:
Marble carvings; these are from the temple of Apollo:
Here is an example of the sort of pit that Iris Rose left dotted all over the landscape. Michael's advice: "Whatever you do, make sure you keep looking at the ground while you are walking about".
Magnificent views from up on the hill, especially of the military harbor and the big circular tower that overlooks it. We finished up with the theater, which was nice but not in quite as good condition as the one in Kaunos. Interestingly enough there was also a larger theater farther up the hill, but it apparently was disassembled and shipped off almost in entirety to Alexandria during the Ottoman era to use as building material for a governor's mansion. This sort of borrowing of stones was incredibly common-- the Romans borrowed from the greeks, the Byzantine rulers took from the Romans, and so on. There is also a word for it, which we heard a lot: "spolia".
The military harbor:
Here is the round temple that people speculate may have housed the statue of Aphrodite:
The shrine to Athena has a series of interesting "maker's marks" that you can see in the stonework foundations: basically directions from the foundry saying "place block A against block B at this point". Kind of cool. If you look closely you can make our two matching letters on either side of the seam:
This shot is looking north from Knidos; a lovely little anonymous bay:
Yours truly:
A sundial:
Ethan examining the ruins of a Byztantine-era church:
Friday June 25:
Took a nice long swim this morning before breakfast. The water here in the harbor is oddly cold; I asked Michael about it, and he said that it's apparently been cold for a very long time (the Greeks used to call it the "cold harbor" as well), and that people have speculated that there may be springs feeding into it somewhere.
Long motoring session this morning over open water to cover the distance up to Bodrum. A little choppy, but not too bad-- lots of nice views of the surroundings, the island of Kos, and the various water traffic.
Bodrum: very crowded! It was something of a shock to see all the people after spending all week on isolated coastlines, bays, and inlets. The harbor is absolutely packed-- I have never seen so many yachts together in one place in my life. The captain had his skills on display in a big way when we arrived at our berth-- he had to ease his 100-ton boat in between two other big boats with about six inches to spare on either side (yikes).
The fortress at Bodrum, entering the harbor:
In the harbor at Bodrum. Richard's reaction upon seeing this: "Let me see: I think I'll have two of those"...
Views to the left and to the right while parked at Bodrum. Lots of arrivals and departures going on as one looks up and down the lines of boats docked: suitcases piled up and people shipping in or out accordingly. On the boat next to us, the passengers were all women, interestingly enough (perhaps all of the boyfriends and husbands were inconspicuously tipped overboard partway through the cruise? :-).
Bodrum definitely has the feel of a hard-boiled "holiday town". In fact walking around it's hard to believe that you are in a country with a strong Islamic tradition-- nary a headscarf to be seen, bars and other places selling alchohol in the open, you name it.
During the day we visited the ruins of the Mausoleum, then headed off to the Byzantine castle that overlooks the harbor. The Mausoleum ruins were interesting, although obviously a far cry from what the original structure was like. I did enjoy Michael's story of the travails of Artemisia, the wife (and also sister) of Mausolus who survived him. Around the time that the Mausoleum construction was finished, Artemesia had succeeded Mausolus and was installed as queen of Caria. The rulers down in Rhodes decided that it was unseemly for a woman to be presiding over such a magnificent monument, and that she would be "easy pickings", so they collected a fleet of ships and an army and sailed up to invade. Artemisia was very crafty; she hid her ships cleverly and let the forces from Rhodes sail into her harbor and dock. After the Rhodes forces had left their ships, her forces popped out, attacked and sank the ships, then proceeded to slaughter the army. She then had the gall to hop in her ships and sail down to Rhodes in a counter-attack; the city garrison saw the sails of the returning vessels, assumed it was their forces returning victorious, and let them into the harbor. Artemisia then basically had her way with the city, even going so far as putting up a statue of herself enshrining her military victory there.
The ruins of the Mausoleum:
This is from the Museum of Underwater Archeology, which is housed inside the fortress at Bodrum. Lots of material on amphorae there:
One thing that is kind of cool about the museums here in Turkey (also the archeological sites) is that they have really cool-looking tickets:
More underwater archeology museum stuff-- a press for making olive oil:
This monster was an anchor for a Roman ship of some sort. Immense thing; one can only imagine what sort of ship it was used with:
View from the castle:
A last look at chef's handiwork:
Saturday, June 26
We said our goodbyes this morning and headed our separate ways. Eric and Annie and their family are headed up to Ephesus/Izmir; Richard and Jesse back to the states, and the rest of us headed off to the Hotel Gulec here in Bodrum. Carey was able to secure a wheelchair for Joanie; he rented it from the local hospital, so she now has a way to get around, thanks goodness, although obviously not everything is incredibly wheelchair accessible around here.
Beth, Sam, Ethan and I spent time wandering around the city exploring; it was very hot so we eventually started to run out of steam after an hour or two. In the afternoon my dad and I took the boys to a swimming pool at a local hotel (very enjoyable) while the rest of the gang relaxed, did some reading, and caught up on sleep. Later in the afternoon Joanie, Ethan, Sam, and I had a marathon 4-way card session (fantan), which was a lot of fun. Sam won the first hand and then had the most amazing streak of bad luck I've seen in some time-- every hand he wound up loaded down with terrible cards. He was a good sport about it, however, and we had fun joking about his record-setting performance. In the evening we headed down to the waterfront for a nice meal at a fish restaurant; fantastic view of the bay, the city, and the castle. Hard to beat the al fresco dining here.
In the evening we had a long session working out the logistics for the remainder of the trip, the main item being figuring out how we were going to accommodate Joanie, who still was not in any condition to walk. The owner of the hotel was extremely helpful, spending time talking with his counterpart at the hotel in Istanbul to work out the arrangements. We actually set up a scheme in which we would take the wheelchair from Bodrum with us on the plan, then use it in Istanbul, and finally ship it back to Bodrum on a cargo flight. Weird, but workable.
Sunday, June 27:
Istanbul! We have definitely arrived in the big city at this point. Relatively easy flight up from Bodrum this morning. The airport in Bodrum is slightly kooky-- huge gleaming/modern international terminal, then a comparatively tiny and crowded domestic terminal off the side. Still, they manage perfectly well in spite of the size differential. Nice ride up from the airport to the hotel, which is smack in the middle of the old part of the city, just down the hill from the Aya Sophia (ideal location).
Slightly tricky getting in and out of the hotel, mainly because the entrance has a big set of marble steps which were too big for the wheelchair; Joanie had to step out of the chair and then scoot up the steps on her rear, much to the chagrin of the hotel guys at the front desk.
This sequence of three pictures shows the view out of our window:
Hotel room:
After that we got ourselves ensconced in our rooms, took a short break, and then headed out to see the Aya Sophia (which is closed on Mondays, hence the need to visit right away).
The trip to see Aya Sophia was great, although also most definitely an adventure (and an education) in wheelchair accessibility. The section of road just up from the hotel turned out to be an absolute scrum-- pedestrians, cabs, cars, buses, all competing to try to make their way up and down from the point up the hill where passengers are let off to visit the church/mosque/museum. We surived that stretch, then navigated our way around the building to the main entrance on the northwest corner.
Photos from the Aya Sophia:
The mosaics on the interior were just stunning, especially when you consider how old they are:
Interior narthex hallway:
The nave:
Dome above:
Upstairs hallway shots:
The dome from the upstairs:
An upstairs hallway ceiling:
This is one of my favorite shots, since it really gives you a flavor for the place:
Ethan doing a little light reading:
This was one of the most interesting mosaics we saw. On the left is Justinian (who built the church) and n the right is Constantine, who built the major portions of the city.
Doorway outside the church:
Minaret (this one is looking over at the Blue Mosque):
The crowds made for very interesting people-watching; there were Americans, Brits, loads of Spaniards, every conceivable sort of Turkish person, Russians, you name it. Dress was everything from "short shorts" and nearly non-existent tops to head scarves and even a few burquas (where absolutely everything is covered). The contrast with Bodrum was incredible.
Dinner that evening in the hotel restaurant, which had lovely striking views of the palace walls and of Aya Sophia. Alas, the food was a bit of a let-down after all the spectacular meals on the boat (it was clear that we had been well and truly spoiled by the chef on the Almira).
Night-time view out of our hotel window:
Istanbul is surprisingly hilly-- it is easy to assume that everything it flat when you are looking at maps and guide books before a trip, so the ups and downs were a bit of a shock.
Monday June 28:
A long and solid day adventuring and sightseeing in the city today. Cloudy; as we sat down for breakfast this morning we could see a huge set of thunderclouds over to the north in the direction of the new city. Major cloudburst as we ate our meal; it was cool to watch the storm sweep in from the north and drench the city.
We were all very happy that we had brought rain jackets, and Ethan had even brought a small umbrella, which we gave to Joanie for her rain protection. After breakfast we decided that we would start out at Topkapi palace, so we got there right as it opened. Here we are after arriving at the palace grounds:
Inside the palace courtyard:
I believe that this building was the Sultan's library:
More portions of the palace.
Cats! We saw them all over the place (even inside the Aya Sophia). It's clear from the expression who the real masters of the palace were:
A lot of the crowds had been kept away by the rain, so the first part of our visit there was pleasantly uncrowded. It was something of a puzzle to figure out which parts of the museum we would be able to visit with the wheelchair, and then to figure out the best route to get from spot A to spot B without having to go over any large sets of steps. A good deal of the museum was closed off-- we couldn't get into the royal kitchens or the imperial armory, and a fairly large number of other sections were unavailable. Still, the things that we did see were very impressive. We visited the section on "holy relics", which had some amazing artifacts from the Islamic world, including a whole succession of "keys" to the Kabaa, relics from the prophet (including clothes, swords, etc). Somewhat surprising to see all this stuff; one would ordinarily assume that things like this would never leave the Grand Mosque in Mecca, but it became clear that a lot of the items were brought to Istanbul during the Ottoman empire as a way of emphasizing just who it was that was in charge during that particular era. We also enjoyed seeing the section displaying some of the clothes worn by the sultans and other royalty at that time.
We all have a greatly enhanced appreciation now of how difficult it is for people to get around in a wheelchair in a big city, especially a city that was constructed and laid out a very long time ago. Poor Joanie had to endure long stretches of cobblestone streets as we made our way from one place to another, and there were numerous treacherous gratings and potholes to contend with, not to mention steps and curbs to be negotiated. The various Turkish passers by were all very friendly and helpful for the most part, although we did have some very funny moments. With the particular wheelchair that we were using, the arms of the chair were designed to come off if you pulled up on them (presumably to allow the chair to be more compact when folded up). The detachable arms were a bit of a problem, however, any time my dad and I were trying to lift Joanie in her chair over an obstacle: a helpful person would run up to help us, grab ahold of an arm of the chair, yank on it, at which point it would immediately pop off. I can't tell you how many times this happened, always with the same result. After a while it became a sort of running joke with us, we would sit there cackling while the poor Turkish person in front of us stood holding the detached arm and looking vaguely puzzled :-).
Nice weather today after the initial rain; sunny but not too hot (the climate in the city here is really nice). It was also very pleasant to be able to run around all day without being completely gooped up with sunblock.
A hallway in one of the shopping areas near the Blue Mosque:
Turkish pretzels turn out to be a good deal tastier than their American counterparts, in my opinion (which I think is shared by Ethan). Instead of being crusted with salt, they are covered with roasted sesame seeds, yum. They are also only 1 TL, too, which is a good deal.
After our visit to the palace we decided to head over to the bazaar, which was quite a long trek (Joanie was a good sport, since it was a very long haul). It was fun to explore and do shopping there, although it is indeed incredibly crowded and outrageously touristy. Ethan bought a t-shirt; I bought some ceramic tiles and some other gifts, and we visited a shop on the way back to buy a big package of Turkish delight (which apparently comes in many different varieties).
We had a brief moment of panic on the way back when one of the tires of the wheelchair started to come off; we were luckily able to make repairs. In fact there were other bits and pieces of the wheelchair that sounded like they were starting to "complain" (I don't think this particular chair was enjoying the treatment we were giving it). We were all a bit tired when we made it back to the hotel, so we decided to cool it for a while and just relax. Dad and Ethan and I went out later on to visit the Blue Mosque; it is also very beautiful but in a very different way from the Aya Sophia. Stunning interior, with a main dome supported by four half-domes, in turn supported by collections of domelets. The paintings and decorations were all looking wonderfully new, since the inside was just restored a few years ago. The building has also been refitted to make it more earthquake resistant, which is always a good thing.
Photos from the Blue Mosque:
Istanbul apparently has a bike share/rental scheme:
After that we visited the underground cistern, a Byzantine era wonder that lay more or less undiscovered under the city all the way up until the 19th century (then fully restored in the early part of the 20th century). An absolute forest of marble columns (all of them appropriated/stolen from the Greeks, of course), each column supporting a clever set of small brick and masonry arches holding up the ceiling.
A photo of the Bosphorus looking north:
The calls to prayer here in the city are really something-- up goes the voice of the "primary" muzzein, then when he pauses you can hear the echoes off in the distance of the other callers fading away; it's an unforgettable experience. Of course, it would actually be kind of nice if they didn't do it at 5:15 in the morning, but I suppose you can't have everything.
Dinner this evening at "Fener", a fish restaurant recommended by the hotel staff. This particular place has a free car service that will bring you from your hotel to the restaurant, which is several miles to the west of the old city. This seemed like a good thing to us, so we decided to go ahead with it. The drive over was an experience in and of itself-- the man at the wheel was an absolute artist: it was clear that he knew the length and width of his vehicle to the centimeter, and was able to get his van into the tiniest possible gaps in the traffic. We basically spent the entire ride sitting back and gaping as he zoomed around through impossibly tiny alleyways and around tight corners; it was truly a performance. The meal was quite nice (we ate outside; there were tables set up on the street). It was also pleasant to look around at the neighborhood, which looked more like a place where people actually live and work, as opposed to being totally given over to tourism.
Back to the hotel after that to relax and get ready for travel the next day.
Tuesday June 29th:
Short walk/run/ramble this morning for a little exercise, and then it was time to pack up and head off for the airport. We got loaded up in the van ok; the helpful hotel staff had one last chance to yank the arm off of Joanie's wheelchair for old time's sake (heh), and then it was off to the airport.
The flight back was fairly uneventful although we did wind up sitting for nearly an hour on the runway in Istanbul, so we were pretty nervous about our connection once we got to Munich. For a while there I didn't think we were going to make it-- the airline was late in sending a wheelchair to pick up Joanie, but then finally things kicked into gear and we were able to get going.
The transfer between flights was actually kind of fun: two rather severe-looking women from the airport staff arrived to help us. Rather than getting onto electric carts right away, they instead stuffed everyone into the elevator, whereupon we rode up to the top floor. When we emerged, we were in what turned out to be a sort of access hallway: no passengers at all, just an open corridor to use for transporting stuff. We then got into the electric carts and zoomed off at high speed (our drivers didn't even slow down for the corners, which made for an entertaining ride). Ethan and I sat in the back of one cart holding onto the wheelchair (it was coasting along on its own wheels). Eventually we made it to the correct gate, whereupon the entire cart went into a new elevator to make the trip down. Frantic rush through the security process, and finally we made it onto the plane with about 5 minutes to spare. Whew!
After that it was smooth sailing... a long day, but not at all bad in the grand scheme of things; we were tired but not completely wiped out when we finally arrived in Lexington. It was very good to be home; Amy had cooked us a nice dinner, after which we were all grateful to fall into bed.
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