Alanya, Antalya, Türkiye
After departing Rhodes and a nice little sail, Oosterdam pulled into Alanya, on the Turkish Riviera.
According to a Hollywood-like sign local enthusiasts love it.
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Chief among the old town's attractions are its 13th century fortifications, the castle and the walls,
culminating in an historic hexagonal red tower, adjacent to the harbour.
On the other side of the headland is the famous Kleopatra Beach where the Egyptian queen is said to have swum.
Obviously, long before the Ottoman fortifications were constructed.
We had pre-booked a Ship Excursion to Side, an ancient Greek city with similar antecedents to Ephesus, along the coast.
The origins of theatre. Greek theatre, from which all theatre descends, originated with the Dionysian religion - Bacchus to the Romans. Athens has a couple on the Acropolis slopes, as does almost every ancient Greek and Roman city. They had both entertainment and religious significance.
We saw two examples in Türkiye today. Along the way to Side we stopped to see, the well preserved and still functioning, Theatre of Aspendos among the best we've seen anywhere. The Roman Theatre at Bosra, in Syria, is another and there's another nice one at Hierapolis, in Turkey
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Theatre of Aspendos, Antalya province
Those Romans were obviously: both physically fit; and not afraid of heights.
At Side there is another - less well preserved. Later on this trip we would see the remnants of others in Plovdiv in Bulgaria.
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Theatre at Side
At its peak Side was an important Greek then Roman Town. It became less so during the Christian Byzantine (Eastern Roman) period and was largely buried during the Ottoman period. The modern, Greek speaking, towns nearby grew until, like many Greek speaking communities along this coast they was forcibly depopulated as a result of a population swap between Turkey and Greece in 1923, that we learned of during our last visit to this coast and again in the Genocide Museum in Armenia.
As unpleasant history is often kept from children and tourists, our guide on this excursion failed to mention the ethnic cleansing, that would soon inform both Hitler's and Stalin's subsequent actions in Poland. Yet, it did serve to explain why modern Side is Turkish and now given over, almost entirely, to its ancient Roman antecedent, in the name of tourism.
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Side township - now dominated by the ancient ruins
The ancient city was once substantial and like other ancient sites a certain amount of reconstruction has taken place among the archaeology, to better illustrate the past and to provide some nice backdrops for photographs.
For example, the remains of the Temple of Apollo, built during the time of Roman emperor Antoninus Pius (c. 150 CE), remains Side's most notable tourist attraction.
Between 1984 and 1990, the remaining five columns and their capitals were restored. As the concrete base carrying the columns started to wear down, and the iron bars inside the columns came to the surface effected by weather conditions, restoration works were carried out in 2017. The broken parts of the columns were repaired with same material used during the restoration in the 1980s (Wikipedia).
Of course, like the Parthenon, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, Big Ben and numerous other tourist sites, it would be a pity to let nature take its course. Yet, there must be a fine line between preservation and the reconstruction of ancient buildings in the interests of tourism?
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Temple of Apollo and Side Forum - restorations evident