We've just finished the fourth day of our Turkish excursion, but it certainly feels as if we've been on the road for much longer. Spending hour after hour on a cramped, knee-crushing tour bus will tend to stretch out your sense of time. Apart from the hassles of large-group transportation, so far, the trip has been amazing, full of new experiences and moderately sketchy adventures (e.g. swimming in the Aegean Sea at night, hiking through ancient ruins, maybe wandering out of bounds and getting whistled at by a security guard, etc.). Many of us were sad to leave Istanbul, which proved to be a fascinating, exciting city to experience and explore.
On Sunday, our first day of excursion, we spent over 7 hours on the bus in transit from Istanbul to our various tour sites and to our final destination in the fishing village of Assos where we spent Sunday night. First, we visited the battlefields and graveyards of Galipoli on the shores of the Dardanelles. Galipoli was beautiful, somber, and surprisingly intense. From Galipoli, we traveled for several hours to the alleged site of the ancient city of Troy, the famous city of Homer's Iliad. To be honest, Troy was a bit underwhelming. The remaining structures are in poor shape despite ongoing excavation efforts. All of it seemed a bit dingy: we expected something epic, but unfortunately, the real Troy failed to live up to the epic expectations set by the Iliad.
After our first day of excursion, we bunked down in the town of Assos, a charming, peaceful fishing village on the shores of the Aegean. Aristotle lived in Assos for a number of years circa 350 BC, and he even established an academy there. St. Paul also visited Assos on his third missionary expedition through Asia Minor between 53-57 AD. Thanks to Professor Langerak for all of the historical background relayed in this post (even though we don't have any class during excursion, we're still managing to learn a bit)! The entire group took a late night swim in Assos, which was a wonderful experience for us. Hopefully we didn't encroach to much upon the peace and quiet of our fellow guests...
Many of us were sad to leave Assos. Our current accommodations at the Batihan Beach Resort in Kuşadasi are far from charming. In fact, it might be safe to say that the Batihan is the complete antithesis to charm, peace, and quiet. This place is like a cheap, trashy, dingy, Mexican-esque, Miami Beach rip-off for vacationing Europeans. So far, we haven't been able to find a single non-fluorescent light in the hotel; the whole place is bathed in a sickly light. This place is like the J.C. Penny's of hotels; everyone seems desperate and there's way too much going on. It would make a perfect setting for a creepy murder mystery novel or a grade B horror/slasher flick. In short, the place gives all of us the "heebie-jeebies". We are all sick and tired of eating at the greasy, gluttonous buffet, getting stuck in the elevators with scantily clad grandparents, walking across the thin beach littered with more cigarette butts than sand, and listening to the incessant, Euro-trash techno house music, which blares from the poolside speakers long into the night. Needless to say, we are all excited to move out of here.
In spite of the shadiness of our current hotel, our tours over the last three days have been excellent. On Monday, we visited Pergamon, an ancient Greek city located 16 miles (26 km) from the Aegean Sea on a promontory overlooking the north side of the river Caicus modern day Bakircay. Pergamon was very cool. Check out this picture of our group gathered at the acropolis of Pergamon!
After Pergamon, we traveled a short distance to the Asclepion, an ancient medical center where patients received basic psychosomatic treatments. The "doctors"/faith healers of the Asclepion employed a variety of psychological techniques including whispering subliminal messages and interpreting the dreams of their patients. The success rate of the Asclepion was said to be very high, but Professor Langerak pointed out that the center would only accept patients that had a good chance of being cured. Here's a picture of the main grounds of the Asclepion!
Yesterday (Tuesday), we visited three different sites including Priene, Miletus, and Didyma. Alexander the Great lived in Priene for a number of years. The city is built on steep slopes that used to overlook the Aegean Sea before the sea receded to its current shores.
After Priene, we traveled across the valley of the Maeander River to Miletus, an ancient port city that used to be one of the wealthiest cities in the entire Greek empire before the Persian invasion. Miletus was also the home city of some of the first Greek philosophers including Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximinies. Here are some pictures of the stadium at Miletus, which used to host plays and gladiator games!
Group in the Miletus Stadium
Miletus Stadium
For the last leg of our Tuesday tours, we visited Didyma, home to an incredible temple to the Greek sun god, Apollo. We'll let the pictures speak for themselves; the place was unbelievably preserved and insanely huge.
Front steps of the Temple to Apollo
Inside the Temple to Apollo
But, our adventure today might prove to be one of the best highlights of our entire semester, or at least of our time in Turkey. We spent the day cruising the Aegean Sea on a private yacht, taking long swims in pure blue water, leaping into the water from 25+ feet up on the top of our ship, snorkeling, lounging under the sun on the top deck, sprawled out over piles of soft pillows. In a word, today was sublime. Some of us may have swallowed too much saltwater, and some of us might have failed to apply enough sunscreen, but apart from some sore stomachs and burnt shoulders, today was pretty close to perfect.
Tomorrow morning, we leave the awful Batihan Resort for another long day of touring to Ephesus, Pamukkale, and Aphrodisias. We'll spend tomorrow night in Konya followed by two nights (Friday and Saturday) in Cappadocia. Excursion has been most excellent so far, and even the hangups and annoyances of long bus rides and seedy hotels will eventually morph into hilarious stories; if we can escape Batihan without getting axe-murdered by a Euro-trash serial killer sporting a mullet and a Speedo, it'll be pretty easy to look back and laugh about our brief stay in beach resort Hell.
Until next time,
Luke P
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