North Africa ‘Plus’ Travel Diary

2011

 

Any plans to catch up on sleep last night evaporated in the early hours of this morning when my mobile phone rang at 5 am.  The helpful lady at the Hang Seng Bank in Ma On Shan (our local branch in Hong Kong) advised me that I needed to come into the branch urgently to sign a paper certifying that my wife’s and my full names combined represented more than the regulation length of 55 characters.  You would have to have experienced banking in Hong Kong to understand the legalism, bureaucracy and pedantry that prevails, and thus the seriousness of this matter that had demanded I lose a few hours sleep.  I had become accustomed to spending an hour each morning and another hour each evening attending to work-related e-mails during my supposed ‘holiday’, and the inability to relax each evening that this entails, but I really did hope to catch up sleep.  The mosque yesterday, Hang Send Bank today- one wonders what will conspire to wake me tomorrow morning.

At 555 kilometres, today’s drive from Antalya to Göreme was the longest daily drive I had planned for Turkey.  Google Maps estimated that the drive would take eight and a half hours, so an early start was clearly desirable.  An usually heavy batch of work-related e-mails, plus an unusually well catered buffet breakfast at our hotel combined to delay our departure until 10 am.

Fortunately (in a way), I had planned only two sightseeing stops for today, both quite close to our starting point at Antalya.  Since arriving in Turkey, we have found that morning sightseeing is generally more pleasant than in the afternoon, because we have noticed a recurring diurnal weather pattern.  We wake each morning to clear blue, cloudless skies.  By late morning a few clouds start appearing, which darken by early afternoon and begin raining in the mid-afternoon.  Today was no exception, although fortunately today’s afternoon rain was much lighter than we have experienced on any of our previous days in Turkey.

Thus, under a cloudless blue sky we made our first stop at Perge, so close to Antalya that it was just inside the outer city limits.  Dating from the 2nd and 3rd centuries BC, Perge was an important city during the days of the Roman Empire before it fell into decline following its takeover by Alexander the Great in AD 334.  Today, the city is in ruins, although its agora (marketplace), huge gates, colonnaded streets and nymphaeum were still very impressive.  There is also a ruined theatre and stadium nearby, although these were not open to the public.  Despite the Lonely Planet Guidebook’s somewhat disparaging description of Perge, Tim and I thought that the ruins made an unexpectedly impressive sight under the clear, blue skies, and we had a very enjoyable hour exploring the city.

A further half hour of driving brought us to our second, and even more impressive, stop - the ruins of Aspendos.  Of a similar antiquity as Perge, the highlight of Aspendos was a huge amphitheatre, said to be the best preserved Roman theatre of the ancient world.  The theatre was built between 161 and 180 AD, and it is still in such a remarkable state of preservation (perhaps due to renovations in the 13th century) that it is still used for dramatic, operatic and other musical performances.

Upon entering the Aspendos site, Tim and I climbed a hill to overlook the entire theatre.  It was an awe-inspiring sight, with its huge size and dramatic backdrop of surrounding hills and valleys.  Having climbed the hill, we completed a circuit of the summit to take in the superb views of two other facets of the ancient city, the stadium and the basilica.  We then descended the hill and entered the theatre itself, climbing to the top and completing the entire semi-circle of its top storey.  The scale of the theatre became readily apparent by climbing up, down and around the structure, and we could only be thoroughly impressed by this incredible feat of ancient engineering.

Most of the rest of the day was spent driving to Göreme, a wonderful drive through a wide variety of landscapes - coastal plan, steep mountains (some capped with snow), deep canyons, and high elevated grassland steppes.  We made just one stop for fuel, during which Tim usefully used his technical skills when the petrol pump operator could not work out how to place the nozzle of the pump into the neck of the car’s fuel tank - well done Tim!

We arrived in Göreme at about 7 pm, and after asking directions from a few local people, managed to find our hotel - which is a cave.  Göreme is unlike anywhere I have ever seen in the world.  More about that tomorrow, as our whole day tomorrow will be spent exploring this bizarre, unique place.

Day 4 - Antalya to Göreme, Turkey

Thursday

16 June 2011

Today’s Bonus Images