The deep south pt. 2. Antalya and Aspendos

(Ebru, Me, and Suna at the turkish music bar)

In the last post I told you about the first half of the trip to visit Suna, well here is part 2. On the second day we got up and had a nice breakfast on Suna's balcony in the warm sun. This is where I will add how horribly slow Turkish people are getting out of the house in the morning! Ebru will kill me for writing this I am sure. They like to wake up late and eat breakfast for one, two, maybe three hours. After getting dressed, showered and brushing of teeth it can easily reach 3pm before you are actually out and ready to go. Good for a lazy Sunday, bad for a restless American who wants to do some sightseeing! That day however we did not leave too late!  

We hopped on a bus to Antalya because it was approximately one hour and some change away and paid six or eight lira for the ride (5 dollars). Upon arrival we headed to one of the most famous parts of Antalya, the beach. The beach is around a kilometer or two long, just guessing. It is set in a beautiful surrounding. One side connects to a mountain range, the other side to cliffs over the Mediterranean. The beach is overly touristy. It has a park on the side opposite the sea with a small carnival setup, lots of souvenir type shops, and a few random nightclubs set up on the beach. No serenity at this beach, but certainly touristic. All the same, it is a nice place and being that I was there in the winter, obviously the off season, it was relatively deserted and we could enjoy the scenery.

(A view over the old town at sunset)

By this point it was late lunch/dinner time (yes already, remember the slow to get going part) and we ventured up the side where the cliffs are to find a place to eat. We found a place that had a porch built right on the edge of the cliffs which curved slightly out at this point, giving us a view down the cliff, to the beach, to the mountains. It was a great view. Of course off to the other side we had the beautifully blue Mediterranean. We had a nice meal; I got mine free on account of a hair in it... gross. In fact the meal was not that good, but I can’t complain when it was free and it was worth the view! We sat there until the sun set over the mountains, the second day watching the sunset over the Mediterranean in a row! then headed off to explore the old town.

(A street in the old town at night)

We walked to a nice area that overlooked the old town which is in fact where a castle used to stand. The outer wall of the castle still has many parts intact. From where we were standing you could see all the old Turkish architecture and the terracotta red roofs. The old town slopes down to the sea, giving yet again a spectacular view. We wondered down into the old town, checking out architecture and random souvenirs. Now it was nighttime and many of the places were closing up, so we found our way down to the sea, and from there went to find a cafe or bar to have a drink. In fact we ended up just wandering more which was totally fine with me, because I just enjoyed all the old houses. We found a place that was going to have live traditional Turkish music later that night so we decided after some time that we would go and listen. While we waited we enjoyed a beer at a restaurant, yet again overlooking the water!

We came back to the bar for the Turkish music and found a seat. The crowd there was extremely hippie, down to the long dreadlocks. I didn’t even know there were Turkish hippies, who knew? The band started playing, the music was kind of cool, it was a hammer dulcimer, a string bass, some drums, and occasionally some other things. The band would play for about five minutes then stop. Their friend went to the hospital sick, so they said they were worried, which they explained to us every time they stopped (via translation from Ebru). They soon found out their friend was fine, but continued to play very short songs, then take at least a 20 or 30 minute break. Overall, I think they played for 15 minutes total over two or three hours. I think they were not so much worried about their friend as just lazy, it seemed to be the general opinion. This would not be such a problem if we did not have to pay to listen to the music, but what can you do?  I told you Turkish people tend to be kind of lazy! (Ebru also will kill me for saying that).

Either way we had fun just hanging out; Suna and her boyfriend, Ebru and I, and Suna's flat mate and her boyfriend, were all together so it was not a problem. From there we piled into the car, dropped the flat mate and boyfriend off somewhere in Antalya, then the remaining four headed back to Manavgat (where Suna lives). We got home around 2 or 3 am because of some interesting directional choices by the guy driving, and just all fell asleep almost immediately.

The next day we got up around 12:00... yeah, late again, and headed off to see Aspendos.  Aspendos is what I wanted to see most on this trip and was most excited about and would not rest until we found a way to go there! We got Suna's boyfriend to come and drive us there because catching a bus was not going to be easy. Aspendos is approximately 45 minutes away from Manavgat, maybe even closer, so not a very long drive. We drove a bit further so we could go to a farm owned by a Turkish actor and have breakfast there. The place we ate was a small room perched a bit precariously on the side of a river. Unfortunately the weather was not so nice this day, mostly rain. We had the usual long breakfast which was of course, very delicious, but time consuming. The rain had really started to pour down now and I was getting worried that the day would be a wash out; sorry for the pun there. We drove up to the area where Aspendos is, which begins with a view of a nice old bridge. We decided to come back and look at it after the main attraction, the theater!

(The Theater)

I had seen the theater in travel books and it looked amazing. As you drive towards it you are surrounded by ruin after ruin along the road. Finally you come around a turn in the road and there it is, a massive theater from the Roman times, almost completely intact. We parked and I dragged Ebru as fast as I could to go buy tickets. We paid around 10 or 15 Lira and headed inside. You walk in to the ground level and all around you is a towering theater. I was taken back by how amazing this place really was. Aspendos theater holds approximately 15000 people and still they have shows there to this day. The decoration on the facade of the theater was a bit broken, but that was to be expected. For a while I just stood down on the ground looking at all that was around me, trying not to miss any detail of it. From there I ventured behind the stage to see what was behind, but nothing really was back there. There is not really a back stage, more just a open area behind the three entrances (The three doors entering the stage was the traditional setup of a Roman theater; thank you classics class at ECU). From there I followed Ebru and the others up the steps of the seating area. Halfway up was a break between the levels with a small walkway under the second level, and I mean very small. After a quick look in I continued my accent up to the top. Around the top was an arched walkway wrapping from one end to the other. From there you got the full view of the theater and how big it really was. I slowly made my way around the top and enjoyed the view and taking some photos. The others were a bit quicker than me but I wanted to stay as long as possible, I was really amazed by this place. After a few more pictures and Ebru telling me to hurry up a few more times, we headed out of the theater.  One other thing I want to add about the theater is that if you made noise or talked loudly, you could hear it all around the theater very easily, the accoustics were outstanding!

I saw in the brochure, to the dismay of the others, that there were more ruins around the theater, where the rest of the city had stood so long ago. I had unfortunately just been informed that our driver had to leave soon and we had very little time, so I ran off to see all I could in the remaining ten minutes. There was an old coliseum that was reduced to nearly nothing to start, and that’s where the others stayed. I ventured on to see a few more things, including the old town market and what was believed to be the old mint. Luckily it was not too far before I found them. The town market was mostly gone, though the shape of it was still obvious. A large rectangle surrounded by columns and on one side a very well intact facade, similar to the styling of the one in the theater. The mint pretty much just looked like an old square building, not much to see, but the walls were still there. It was still cool to look at. Unfortunately they did not have any coins there to see from the mint, maybe there are some in other museums around turkey. This mint, though small, produced coins for the entire region that it was in.

Unfortunately at this point I could not make them wait any longer and had to leave. From there we went to a nearby mall so that Ebru could search for a dress for her sister's wedding, then we went back to Manavgat to get ready to depart for home.

(The walkway around the top of the theater)

I will point out that it was Sunday night and we were going to take the bus all night and Ebru would arrive back in the morning and go straight to school. We knew that Monday would be a long day for her. After a quick dinner with Suna we headed off to the bus station. We found our bus, sadly not the cool one we took to Antalya, and headed off to Izmir. Things went smoothly for the first few hours, I watched the original Casino Royale, which was much stranger than I had expected. If I am not mistaken I think it had Peter Sellers in it. I had noticed that it had started to snow lightly, which was cool because I had no expectations to see snow during my winter in Turkey. As we drove on the snow would start and stop, until about 3am when the snow picked up to a heavy and thick snow. We continued slowly on in the snow until we got to a hill. In the distance we saw some flashing lights that as we got closer, turned out to be another tour bus that had gotten stuck on the way up. Unfortunately instead of going around our driver stopped behind him. As any of you know who have driven in snow, when you stop on a hill, you don’t start again. If you have not gathered by now, we were stuck. The snow continued to come down in big fluffy pieces as our bus driver, who probably had driven in the snow very few times before, and the other employees tried putting chains on the tires, get traction, or do anything they could to get moving. We can just say that they were not very successful at this. The time was hitting around 5:30 am by now and we finally started moving a little bit, but our bus driver yet again stopped, this time it seemed like he could not decide whether to go to one side of the road or the other, ended up waiting too long and having a sign in front of him... and having to stop. Along with this about 6 guys thought it was a good idea to watch from outside to see if it got traction, then we had to wait for them to get on... so we had to stop.  That's right, stuck again. Again the people got off, chains were fiddled with, and an hour or two later, again we started going. This time they were smart enough not to watch from outside. Only one guy stayed outside I guess to make sure that the chains stayed on, then he hopped on the bus, as we continued moving slowly, third time is a charm I guess, and we were off.  Once they figured out the not stopping thing we were good to go!  From there we had no more problems, and rolled on through to Izmir. Now if you do the math, leave at 10:00 pm, 9 hour trip, 3 hours plus stuck in snow, which means that it is around 10:00 am upon arrival and school has started, so Ebru went as fast as possible to a bus and headed off to school. I headed to her home, exhausted from the bus ride. Through we spent 12 hours on the bus, I only had maybe 2 hours of sleep, so I quickly passed out until afternoon.

So that was the grand trip to the Antalya area. Filled with beautiful scenery, amazing history, and getting to see Suna! It was overall a really fun time and I hope we will end up back there again this summer.  Also the comment section is fixed so any one can now post a comment!

(me in the theater!)