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Day 12: Aphrodisias, Bodrum We had a great sleep in the hotel in Pamukkale. Nice breeze all night, and clothes were dry. We were up early yet again, packed and got ready, then headed over for breakfast. We had a good breakfast, lots of food. Then piled into the bus and left for Aphrodisias. Aphrodisias Aphrodisias was a real eye-opener for me. We had already been to other ruins, but they didn't have as great an impact as Aphrodisias. Possibly because I was finally over the flu and feeling good again. Possibly because of the size of the city of Aphrodisias. Whatever it was, it changed my attitudes to the ruins. This is a map of Aphrodisias. We came in at the East, where the arrow is on the left. The museum is just inside the gate. We left the museum for last, so we went past it and headed north to the stadium. Then we walked south past the Temple of Aphrodite, and around the Odeon. We climbed the hill to get to the Theatre, and then we came back to the Museum. Aphrodisias is a very old city. It sits on top of a hill that is not a hill. The hill is really a large prehistoric mound built up by successive settlements beginning as early as the Copper Age, and into the Bronze Age (2800-2200 BC). One of the early names was Ninoe, and at one time it was called Megalopolis. From the 8th century BC, it was a site for the worship of the goddess Aphrodite, hence the name of the city. The city enjoyed favourable relations with Rome in the time of Sulla, who regarded Aphrodite-Venus as his protector. Julius Caesar favoured it too, as he claimed to be a descendant of Venus. A little later on in the first century BC, it was joined to the neighbouring town of Plarasa, and received from Rome, thanks to Antony, freedom and immunity from taxes. The city prospered. In the earliest centuries AD, it enjoyed considerable renown as a cultural and religious centre. It was the birthplace of the medical writer Xenocrates, the novelist Charito, and the Peripatetic philosopher Alexander. It was promoted to be the capital of the new Roman province of Phrygia-Caria in 259 AD, when the two individual provinces were joined. Under the threat of Gothic invasion, the city was surrounded by powerful walls, 12,000 feet in circumference. The city continued to prosper in Christian times. Around 325 AD, it became the seat of a bishopric, and was sometimes known by the new name of Stavropolis (city of the cross). Under threats of Persian attacks around 350 AD, the city was fortified with a new circuit wall. Ancient buildings were pulled down to provide the stones for these defensive walls. In the 5th century AD, it became the capital city of Caria under the reign of Emperor Leon I. Under the Byzantines the city changed substantially. The Temple of Aphrodite was completely rebuilt when it was converted to a basilica church around 500 AD. The town, diminished from its former glory, was attacked by Tamerlane on his Anatolian rampage in 1402 and never recovered. The Turkish village of Geyre sprang up on the site sometime later. In 1956 an earthquake devastated the village, which was rebuilt to the west in its present location, allowing excavations to be more easily carried out on the site. This is the stadium. It was a huge structure that could seat 30,000 spectators. It was built in the 2nd century BC. The stadium is basically a very large mound that was hollowed out. The seating is pretty much intact, but the facilities and fixtures were just blocks of rubble at the bottom. I was impressed. I walked in at this end and looked down the track to the other end. I saw Mavis down at the bottom, gamely walking to the other end. Competitiveness surged in my breast. If Mavis could do it, so could I. And besides, I was curious what was at the other end, what that black hole was. I walked to the very end of the stadium and I went into that black hole and poked around, then I climbed up to the top and walked back around to where I started, but walking along the very top. I saw the farm fields on the other side of the stadium, and how the land sloped gently up to the top. I saw small friezes and carvings at the top. I learned that it was worth walking all over the ruins and seeing as much as possible. So from this moment onward, I went where Mavis went. If she climbed a hill, I climbed it. If she walked to the end of a stadium, I walked it too. I don't think she ever noticed that I was doing the "anything you can do, I can do too" thing, as I kept it fairly quiet. I climbed every amphitheatre we came to. And because of this, I saw more than I would have seen if I had followed my usual slothful habits. The Tetrapylon is a decorative gateway from the middle of the second century AD. It gets its name from the four rows of four columns (tetra = four, pylon = gateway). Because it was such an attractive piece, and most of the pieces were still available, this gateway has been restored. This is the Odeon, a small and intimate theatre and meeting place, that dates from the second century AD. It was accidentally discovered in 1962. Originally, it was roofed and seated about a thousand people. However, the roof and the upper tiers of seats collapsed during earthquakes in the 4th century AD. We had to climb up high to reach the amphitheatre. This dates from the first century BC, when the Aphrodisians scooped out the eastern slope of the hill and built this large theatre. It went through a number of changes and redesigns in its life. Originally built as a theatre, then later remodelled to allow gladiators and animal fights, rebuilt after the earthquakes in the 4th century AD, and collapsed pretty thoroughly after the big earthquakes in the 7th century AD. You can see the 5 metre high wall at the back of the stage, mostly intact. Behind that are a bunch of little storage rooms for props and costumes. In keeping with my new resolution, I climbed up it, and down it, and up it again, and around the top and all over it. I wanted to have a good look at all of the theatre, and I did. I got the feel for what it was like to be on stage and looking out and up at the audience. I climbed high up and sat and watched others on the stage. I sat down the bottom and watched others on the stage. I had so much fun, thinking of what it would have been like to sit and watch real performances when the theatre was new. After we had spent hours climbing over everything and having a good look round, we came back to the start and went into the museum. During Roman times, Aphrodisias was home to the Carian Sculptors, a famous school of sculptors who were attracted by the beds of high-grade white and blue-grey marble two kilometers away at the foot of Baba Dagi mountain. The museum contains a stunning array of statues and carvings. I was most impressed by these two. The first is The Boxer, which was originally on the stage of the Theatre. The second is the Crowning of Nero by his mother Agrippina. The museum isn't a large one, but it is large enough to show how beautiful Aphrodisias must have been in its heyday. It's very bright and sunny inside and well worth a visit. Opposite the museum are a few stalls selling mementoes - postcards, books, busts of Alexander the Great. Open Air Lunch with Singer We left Aphrodisias and drove to an outdoor cafe for lunch. It was a very large eating place, with many long tables set outdoors under trellises. It was cool and relaxing. The food was pretty good too. The only discordant note was the entertainment. There was a young man singing for us. He would sit near various tables and sing terrible songs with much braying and moaning for his lost loves. I was so appalled at the noises he was making that I had to photograph him. Luckily, he spent most of his time far from us, singing to tables who may have been more appreciative. Bodrum After lunch, we drove to Bodrum. When we were almost there, we drove up a winding hill and got to see Bodrum on the bay. It looked very Greek, very Mediterranean. Lots of white cubes on the slopes of the bay. It looked very beautiful and I was glad that we had a three day stop here.We had been booked into one hotel for the three days, but they had cancelled that very morning while we were en route to Aphrodisias. Sebnem had spent the morning on the phone, trying to organise another hotel at such short notice. She succeeded. She did such a good job that most of us didn't know that we had been cancelled and then another place found. Sebnem did a really good job the whole trip, always making sure that we were fed and watered and housed, and she overcame many problems along the way. She was good. She had booked us into the Forever Club. This was a huge complex on the beach, on the outskirts of Bodrum. It was the Forever Club on Forever Beach. It looked very attractive from the water and from a distance, but it turned into the Club From Hell, and I will Forever Beach about it. The Forever Club is a large hotel owned by a German company. Germans love coming to Bodrum for their holidays. They fly in on a German airline, and they stay in a German hotel, and they have their fun and then they fly back to Germany refreshed. German women get the most benefit from Bodrum. Bodrum is stocked with handsome young Turks, all vying for the attention of the German ladies. German ladies come to Bodrum to play. German men are well catered for too, by lovely blonde German girls. We saw several of them here. Tourist season was almost over for the year, and the Forever Club was emptying out. The roads through Bodrum were narrow. The route to the Forever Club was unknown. But Mustafa knew the general direction and he steered the bus there, backtracking occasionally and squeezing the bus through here and out there, and he delivered us safely. He stopped the bus down at the bottom. Look at the photo. We were down the bottom. We discovered that check-in was at the top. We walked up 8 flights of stairs to reach check-in. We were not amused. Check-in was horrible. We had to fill out a form, one of these horribly complex forms. Normally we didn't have to do that, probably because Sebnem was able to organise the booking in advance. But here we had to fill in the form. And then we each had to leave a 2 million Turkish lira deposit. Mustafa and the bus arrived at the top with our luggage. There was a little grinding of teeth about having just walked up 8 flights of stairs, when we could have taken the bus up, but we were mostly too busy with the lengthy and officious check-in procedures. After we went through the check-in procedures, we each got a room card and a room key, and 2 remotes. One remote was for the TV and one was for something else that we never quite worked out. Then, we discovered that we had all been allocated rooms back down near the bottom. We all trudged down 7 flights of stairs, carrying our luggage, grumbling and laughing in amazement. One of the remotes did not work. I walked up 7 flights of stairs, got a replacement and walked down 7 flights of stairs again. This was our first inkling that life at the Forever Club was going to be exercise. Then we had a taste of something that was going to infuriate us over the next few days. I had a shower. A nice lukewarm shower. In salt water. When I got out, it was Anne's turn. She had a cold shower. In salt water. Anne was not happy. When we met for dinner, we found that most had the same experience. Lukewarm or cold showers. In salt water. We were not very happy. But things got worse. After our attempt at a shower, we had a bit of a rest until dinner time. Then we got dressed and climbed 4 floors to the dining area. Dinner was buffet style. There were lots of long tables, and you sat where you wanted, commandeering as many tables as you wanted, and then helped yourself to the food. Although the tourist season was almost over, there were still a large number of Germans in residence. They were all at dinner. We claimed two tables, and started filling up at the buffet. We also tried to snare the attention of a drink waiter. This proved difficult. This was our first indication of the focus of the Turkish waiters. We weren't German women on the loose, so they gave us cursory attention. We spotted one Turkish waiter who was a little stud bull of a man, and he was seriously chatting up an ugly German girl. He was absolutely intent on his conquest and it was hard to get his attention to get a few drinks. We only managed a few times. When I sat down to dinner, I was in a really bad mood. The climbing up and down had irritated me, the lack of hot water had irritated me, everything about the Forever Club was irritating me. I was building up a good sullen rage, but I wasn't allowed to wallow in a good sulk. There was a young Canadian couple at dinner, sitting at the next table and they heard our accents and starting chatting with us. They were on their honeymoon, and had recently visited Australia and had a great time. They were really nice, and very enthusiastic, and I wasn't allowed to stew in my sulk but had to come out and be pleasant. It changed the night for me, and made it a pleasant night after all. One of the highlights of the meal was the table behind us. There were two German girls with a number of German men. One of the girls was well built. She was slightly chubby, with a baby face and an awesome set of breasts. The other girl was blonde and very hard looking. She was either very drunk or tripping spacily. The chubby one decided to put on a baby act. She started crying like a baby cries, while the others at her table laughed and laughed. It was pretty amusing, albeit a bit disconcerting. We saw more of this huge-breasted woman while we were at the Forever Club. She figured prominently on a shipboard incident a few days later. After dinner, we walked down a few flights of stairs to be beside the pool and attempt to get a cup of coffee. The pool area was quite nice - little tables, a small bar and four young Turkish waiters. Great, we thought, we can sit by the pool and get coffee. Oh dear, we hadn't reckoned on the sex factor. Near the bar was a table with two young German women. Could we get a waiter? Not bloody likely. Two of the waiters were fetching coffee for the women and the other two were providing back and shoulder massages. Eventually, one of the ones unlucky enough not to be massaging, was attracted by our irritation and he quickly got us coffee and got back to the task at hand which was servicing the two young German ladies. After our single cup of coffee, we gave up and walked down a few flights of stairs to our room, pottered about sorting clothes and making notes, then went to sleep, hoping that tomorrow would be better.