April 6: Myra, Kekova and Semena -- Feel the heat!

Ian chose the title for today's blog, as it topped 24C today.  The sun was out, and we were ready for adventure!

Ian was back on form today as we went to see the rock-cut tombs at Myra, home of Jolly old St. Nicholas.  We then headed through the area called Kerkova, which means “land of thyme” to the villages of Kaleköy and Üçağiz.  Next, we hired a boat and went for a bracing swim, a tour of the underwater ruins of the ancient city of Simena, and a fast climb to the top of a hill and the castle built by the Knights of Rhodes partially upon ancient Lycian foundations.  A lovely lady, Anyna, walked up with us, and showed us all of the local plants.  We gave a Polish couple a ride back to Kalkan, then went for a stroll around the town before enjoying a delicious meal.

For the first time this trip, we were heading over roads we had traveled before, so I begged to differ with the Gimli and we headed straight for the town of Demre.  Only one slight wrong turn later we arrived at Myra.  The air was saturated with the smell of orange blossoms, and we immediately had a glass of orange juice made from oranges picked that morning.  Delicious!

I didn't know that trees could have fruit and blossoms at the same time, but this one does!

They are doing some construction work at Myra, which gave us a chance to see how some of the buildings are resurrected.  First, apparently, all of the stones are numbered and set into piles.  A crane makes a lot of noise, I observed, and then everyone has lunch – perhaps because it was lunchtime.

This olive tree was used as a coat rack and cooler until lunch time!

 Myra has its theatre,as you might suppose, but is most famous for its rock-cut tombs, made directly in the mountain side in Roman times.

Masks and a capital from the theatre complex

Tombs cut directly out of the rock, and intended to look like houses.

Archways around the theatre that covered staircases, allowing thousands of theatre goers to leave at once!

The theatre from the cheap seats.

It apparently had a temple to Cybele in the form of the goddess Artemis Eleuthera, but jolly old St. Nicholas (the bishop of Myra in the 4th century AD) in his zeal to stamp out paganism in the region, had the temple of Artemis, along with many other temples, completely destroyed.  The town makes much of St. Nick, and Santa Claus pictures appear randomly and seemingly without purpose throughout the town.

Among other luminaries who have visited ancient Myra we can count Germanicus and his wife Agrippina (Ian wanted to name our daughter Agrippina, if you remember), St. Paul, who changed ships here on his way to trial in Rome, and the Emporer Hadrian, who apparently went everywhere.

Myra was one of the first cities to be hit with the plague, and lost more than a third of its citizens in the year 542-543.

We drove toward Üçağiz, past several ancient sites with rock cut and Lycian style tombs just sitting on the side of the road.  Ian doesn’t stop for pictures unless they are pictures of tortoises.  However, I just couldn’t believe this one section of road where the hillside was cut away into this stunning monolith of white granite. 

This thing is huge!  It's the biggest chunk of marble I've ever seen,  The little blue dot just to the right on the road is a car.

A random roadside tomb in the middle of a million beehives.

We had planned to kayak at Üçağiz, but there were only plastic canoes, and the island is two kilometres away, so we chartered our own boat tour for two. 

Our first stop on the island of Kesova was to swim – right beside two tour groups.  The water was cold at first, but certainly no colder than any lake on Vancouver Island in summer.  We swan over to the island, and looked down to see white marble sand and bits of Roman brick under our feet.  The water truly is turquoise, giving the name to this place as “the turquoise coast”. 

The water is really that turquoise in colour, even when you're right in it.  I put my glasses back on and went back in so Ian could take a picture of me in revenge for the one I took of him!

You could certainly understand why the Lycian coast was for over a thousand years a haven for pirates.  There are so many protected hidden coasts and little islands to hide behind, it would be pretty hard to catch anyone in the act.  Apparently, when the Romans took control of this area they were soft on piracy, since the crews of merchant vessels were sold into slavery, and these slaves were of the highest quality.  Wealthy people, such as Julius Caesar himself, were ransomed back by the Lycians.  Julius Caesar’s first campaigns were in this area.

After we had dried off a bit and dressed, we headed along the island to the “area of special protection” around the site of ancient Simena.  Simena was once located partly on an island, and partly on the mainland, but a terrible earthquake in the 2^nd century AD cause the land to slide beneath the ocean.  It was moving to see staircase after staircase cut into the rock, now leading nowhere.  There were many half buildings, where one half had fallen away, and the harbour walls and warehouses, once on the shore, are now in the water.

The harbour walls, made to keep back the sea.

A staircase to nowhere.

Mere ruins

 There is even a Lycian tomb sitting randomly in the shallows near the modern village of Simena.

At Simena, we were given half on ahour to climb to the top of the hill and see the crusader castle, built by the Knights of St. John of Rhodes.  We were accompanied up the hill by a lovely woman, who noted my interest in flowers and gave us sprigs of oregano and thyme, and picked marguerites, passionflowers, and poppies for us.  She showed us a thousand year old olive tree.   

Passion Flower

Morning Glory -- scourge of the garden back home!

 We paid our money to get into the castle, and got fabulous views of the ocean below us, and of the necropolis just below the castle.

Just about there!

The view from almost the top.  Our boat is down there, back at sea level!

Ian, achieving the summit!

 I was amazed by the ease with which we climbed the hill at pace, and how much I enjoyed our aerobic interlude of the day.  I was also glad that I had purchased a hat today!  I also purchased a scarf from Anyna.

Our guide up the hill.

Our captain and our boat.

We returned to the village of Üçağiz, and dtarted the drive home.  I thought it would be lovely to see one more ruin, but we got lost.  Ian saw another tortoise and made a video.  We saw a tiny little village which quarries marble, and went through more farming villages.

As we went through the twists and turns along the ocean, we picked up a young Polish couple who are travelling in the opposite direction from us along the coast, and they told us about lots of things we have to look forward to.

We arrived back at the hotel.  While we were gone, our chain-smoking landlady had washed, dried, and IRONED our laundry.  Even the underwear.  Yesterday I had mentioned to Ian that she smelled and sounded like our good friend Mary Fawcus, who used to help me out by doing laundry, and who used to iron the bedsheets.

We walked around Kalkan for a while, and went out onto the breakwater, to look backwards at our daily breakfast view.

Then we looked at some of the local handicrafts, and we bought a bowl that was made by the artist, who looks a lot like our very good friend Dave Drummond.  The bowl is being shipped.

At last, we settled into Café Leon for dinner.  Ian matched the turquoise upholstery, or at least his shirt did.  I ate there yesterday – solo—and although I met some lovely British ex-pats last night, it was much more fun eating delicious food at this family run restaurant.  It was outstanding, and I think Ian ate more tonight than he has all week!

Tomorrow we leave Kalkan.  I will miss this beautiful part of the Lycian coast.