H Guys,
have had a pretty crusy 2 or 3 days snce my last emal...the weather has fnally put on a good show for us. All the tme we'd been thru Gallpol etc, t was constantly cloudy and on the cold sde, the only savng grace was that when t raned t was only whle we were on the bus - mraculously every tme we vsted a ste the ran stopped and then started agan as soon as we left. Now, just n tme for Chrstmas, Allah has heaped sunshne upon us the past 3 days.
Pamukkale and the ancent ste (another one!) of Heropols was the next stop after the amazng Ephesus. Pamukkale s a small town wth a major tourst attracton n the calcfed falls and swmmng holes. An underground natural sprng was unleashed due to an earthquake centures ago, and the water supply had huge calcum levels n t. These then splled over the nearby clff face to form a very unusual lookng whte waterfall. The ancent Romans apparently beleved these to contan healng qualtes and, arund 1st Century AD, landscaped the area nto dozens of mn pools down the hllsde deal for bathng and relevng alments. Swmmng n these has now been banned snce UNESCO has lsted t as a World Hertage Ste, but t looks amazng especally when lt up wth green-tnted floodlghts at nght.
The Romans also bult a cty, Heropols, as a spa town back n the same era, and the runs stll exst today - the usual towerng colums surroundng the Agora market place, publc baths and tolets (complete wth sophstcated sewerage systems!!) and a sprawlng Necropols (graveyard of the rch and famous) - once agan - very, very mpressve.
Fethye, down south on the Turquose coast by the Aegean Sea, has been my favourte town so far. Ths tourst mecca, usually packed n the summer, but almost deserted now, s spread around a large sheltered bay, wth a background of steep wooded mountans and a small harbour. It also was the frst place we spotted ancent bural tombs that have been carved nto the sde of the clff face lookng over the harbour. Now these are somethng!! They are lterally 20 metres n heght, and juttng some 4-5metres nto the clff, and some 30-40 metres above street level, complete wth carved columns supportng the 'roof' of the tomb. It s some pece of stone-masonry!! I could go on, but won't.
En-route to Dalyan, we pad a vst to an old Greek vllage whch s now a ghost town - has been snce 1923 when the Greeks and Turks had a populaton exchange to settle some nter-Government dspute over land. A whole town of Greeks was shpped back to Greece, and vce-versa. For some reason, the returnng Turks dd not take up the former Greek resdences. It was knda strange walkng thru totally grassed over streets and laneways on the hllsde vllage, wth all the roofs of stone houses completely mssng and open to the elements. Nce vew over the ocean at the top tho.
Fnally, our Chrstmas Day destnaton, Dalyan, another quant lttle tourst town totally devod of toursts and nearly all busnesses closed for the wnter, leavng t completely and utterly to us. Our Chrstmas Day was spent crusng around a rver-delta regon on a boat thru brush and scrub reeds to check out another pre-Chrst, 4th Century BC runs, some more ancent clff-sde tombs even more magnfcent than the ones n Fethye, and then Turtle Beach, where, when n season, turtles come up from the sea to lay ther eggs and hatch. Once agan, totally deserted apart from us - an excellent spot to st on a beach n the sunshne and 'blazng' heat of 13 degrees lookng out over turquose waters dotted wth lttle slands, whle havng our Chrstmas lunch. Mmmmmm.
It's pretty funny the way Xmas worked out. People were asking where i would be for xmas, and my answer was always 'somewhere in Turkey - maybe i could get some turkey in Turkey. After the lunch, whch was a packed lunch of sandwches and soft drink i was thinking that turkey was out of the question, but at dinner that night someone cheekily asked the waiter for roast turkey and cranberry sauce. Without batting an eyelid, he said they could get turkey, but suggested a turkey sish-kebab wth salad....an item not on the menu, but i suspect soon wll be, as about 3/4 of our group ordered t. So, turkey in Turkey was not out of the question, and we had it Turkish style! Nice!!
Anyway, that about wraps t up. hope you all had a great Xmas - mne has been somewhat dfferent!
cheers,
tony peace love and happy faces
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