Summer-Ends.de

We started this day by looking for a market. Unfortunately, there was only one vegetable market, but the prices were very low. On the way to Didim, we visited some other ruined cities, some of which were quite well preserved and where excavations were taking place.

This day had some bad and rainy weather. However, this did not stop us from continuing with our visit programme. We first visited a completely neglected World Heritage Site and then some more ruins. Finally, we arrived a little south of Dalyan and drove to a beach that was bought by a leading AKP politician and will probably be built up soon.

On this day we decided to stay one more night in Demre. This place is again a bit more remote than all the tourist places before. First we visited the church of St. Nicholas, a person I think everyone in the western world knows. Afterwards, we went to an old amphitheatre right in Demre as part of an ancient city. After that, we went a little further into the mountains to an area of ruins with countless sarcophagi, finally completely abandoned.

Antalya was quite an uncomfortable city with an extremely ugly beach and full of buildings. The cost of everything was easily three times what we had before. However, the accommodation was again extremely cheap with maybe around 30€ for an apartment with two rooms. This again saves a lot and was ultimately the reason to stop there. The next day we continued towards Demre. We wanted to see the flames at Mount Chimaera, but some highwaymen wanted money, so we didn’t go. In the end, we could have gone there from another direction. Overall, everything near Antalya and Olympos was extremely touristy and expensive. Later we drove then at Demre still something inland, because there again a famous old city was the free and ultimately only visited by us.

The journey continued from Anamur in the direction of Antalya. First we visited an old town on the coast near Anamur. The ruins of the city were eaten up quite dramatically by the sea and it was quite clear how it was here 3000 years ago. The entrance fee here was only 2€ and there was no one else on the huge site. Later we were to pay over 20€ for quite pointless stuff. We stopped briefly to have lunch. There was fresh grilled fish and rice. The ride continued at ruins at a small bay. Here someone must have built a villa 2000 years ago which is still clearly recognizable today. Near Antalya we visited another ruined city on a mountain.

From the small village of Ayas we continued along the coast to the Mediterranean Sea in the direction of Anamur. Again we encountered numerous old ruins and dilapidated cities.

On the Mediterranean coast there was much more to see than before in the area around Ankara. While there was still snow in the mountains, there was now best spring weather with temperatures above 20 degrees in April. Everything was full of millennia-old ruins of ancient cities to visit.

Our next destination was now Mersin, located in the south of Turkey. We first wanted to go further east, but finally decided against it, because there was just before a big earthquake with over 50,000 dead. We didn’t want to get into the situation of aftershocks there and besides, the infrastructure was missing everywhere. So we decided to go first to Mersin and from there along the Mediterranean coast towards Izmir.