Antalya

Arriving in Antalya by plane we picked up a car at the airport for the remainder of our trip in Turkey.

Antalya is an ancient, once fortified, town on the Adriatic. It's now Turkey's premier tourist destination on the stretch of the Mediterranean known as the Turkish Riviera. 

We chose to stay in the old city and this turned out to be an immediate problem for our car. The hotel promised parking but, as we arrived after the entrance was closed, we couldn't get in.  After some harrowing attempts at finding a portal and half a dozen laps of the same traffic jammed streets, thanks to Tom-tom and Google Maps, we finally gave up and parked outside then trundled our big bags, through noisy crowds of partying youngsters, to the hotel. At the time it seemed we were living a nightmare. Fortunately, like all nightmares, it evaporated with the morning.

We set about exploring.

Around Antalya

The old town has remnants of the ancient city still intact, including parts of the walls and Hadrian's Gate that goes back to when this was an important Roman naval and trading port.   A statue of Attalus II Philadelphus stands in a square overlooking the harbour proclaiming him to be the founder of the city in 158 BCE but there is archaeological evidence that there was already a town here when it was taken by Attalus for the Hellenistic (Greek) Kingdom of Pergamon.  It didn't remain in Greek hands for very long because in 133 BCE it was bequeathed to the Roman Republic and remained an important Roman port city through early Christianity and the Byzantine period.  

In the eastern wall of the old city is Hadrian's Gate and Tower, built in 131-2 CE in honour of the Roman Emperor who was soon to visit
It fell into disrepair and was restored in 1961-2, in honour of tourism.
Below right: A plaque advises us that Antalya was founded as a strategic port in 158 BCE by Attalos II of Pergamon
He's imagined here in bronze not very practically dressed, apparently dedicating one hand to holding up his toga.
He named it ATTALEIA! - assuming that wasn't his exclamation when he inadvertently let go and his toga fell down.

In 1206 the city was besieged by the Seljuk Turks for 16 days and survived but the following year it was overrun. Yet Byzantine traditions continued even after the fall of Constantinople in 1453. The predominantly Greek city was then progressively Turkified with the principle Christian Byzantine churches and basilica converted to Mosques and the population ghettoised - occupying different quarters according to their origins and religions. 

Fast forward over 700 years. When the Ottoman Empire collapsed during the First World War (1914-18) the city fell again to the Italians (Romans again?).  But in 1924 was reclaimed by Turkey as a result of the Turkish War of Independence, led by Atatürk.  As mentioned elsewhere in the late 19th and early 20th century Turkey systematically rid itself of non-Muslims.  There seems to be an ethnic as well as a religious preoccupation. Today Turkey has a problem with its Kurdish ethnic minority who are predominantly Muslim.  So although almost everyone is extremely friendly I'm not sure what they really think of us tourists.

Today Antalya's urban population is around 1.2 million but the city receives over ten times that number of tourists a year so around every second person is a tourist.  Several people we spoke to in popular places complained about tourists in general, ignoring the fact that we were part of the problem.  Face-to-face most people in every country we travel to go out of their way to be friendly. I like to think the others are just having a bad day.

Antalya has several very good museums. A private museum  (museum pass not accepted) in an old house adjacent to a one-time church explores historical culture. It has an interesting collection of mainly 20th century household artefacts and several historically furnished rooms, complete with historically dressed mannequins. 

In addition to the church that is now a museum we dropped into a mosque that was once a church.  Apart from tourists there is not much call for churches as there are no longer a lot of resident Christians. 

New uses for churches now that there aren't a lot of Christians

The principal Antalya archaeological museum has a marvellous collection of classical marble statues sarcophagi; coins and treasures. Yet another has anthropological finds going back to the Neanderthal. Tools found indicate that that our much more ancient cousins treated and sewed hides to make clothing. There are also artefacts from our own Palaeolithic past through the firing of pottery then smelting metals - bronze and then iron. How clever were these people!

Iron Age back through bronze and ceramic beakers to prehistoric imaginings - possibly Neanderthal
What gods were here then?

In addition to these there are several private 'museums' in historic houses, one in which Atatürk once resided described as a replica, but we didn't get to the bottom of that as it was closed.

The harbour, about the size of Mosman Bay in Sydney Harbour, is similarly picturesque.  It was once the busiest ancient port on this coast, but today it's too small for anything larger than the occasional super-yacht. This is a very active tectonic region and it's possibly been upthrust since Roman times, like Wellington Harbour in New Zealand, or siltation, like the ancient city of Ephesus along the coast, that's lost its harbour altogether - more of that later.

More Antalya with a hint of the trams - I omitted to take pictures when in the city proper - just the pretty parts

Outside of the old city walls the urban landscape is like many other modern cities, with flats and other dwellings and the familiar fast food outlets. In Antalya trams, like many cities in Turkey, add to the traffic chaos.

Leaving Antalya along the coast promised to be more interesting than the inland (highway) route favoured by the tour busses.  Our rental car was a 6 speed diesel Ford Focus - ideal for the narrow, winding hilly tracks and high speed expressways we would encounter thanks to TomTom (our trusty GPS navigator of the world's roads) guiding our way.