9-21 The Ancient City of Syedra

 After our wonderful morning in the cool mountains chasing waterfalls, we headed for the ancient city of Syedra.  We were thinking - this sounds small - it should not take us too long to go through it.  

A city in the mountain is going to have lots of hills.  We started from the parking lot and headed up these very reasonable stairs.

We were rewarded by this view of the sea and the entrance buildings.  All have solar panels on them.  That is our lone van in the parking lot.  It is now officially - very hot!

Part way up - some tombs they have excavated.  

Up on top we enter the ancient city.

This was a large circle with seating around it - the sports stadium.  This was built during the Roman period.

The city itself is high above us.

There were several colonnaded streets like this one.

There were many references to the production of olive oil.  A lot of rooms were used for the process and also for storage.

Another colonnaded street a level up.

Most of the steps are from the Roman period and as you would expect are not very even or that stable.

3rd level up.  

Still more rooms for processing olives.  There is also evidence of rooms for the processing of wine.

Steps between the different levels.  Sometimes I could count on a wall to help me navigate the steps.  Other times Michael and I had to cling to each other.  

Olive processing.

Almost to the top.

Off limit steps.

Looking down on the city.

You have to have columns with capitals.  These were Corinthian (actual credit goes to Michael for identifying them).  

At most ruins they remove the mosaic and put it in a museum.  There are actually places in Greece where you can get really close.  You could not get near this one - just a really good view from the higher level.

Cool photo!

A view from on top down to the sea.

The bottom warning says - don't pitch a tent here!

There was very little left of the Christian church way on the top level.  Excavations are on-going.  I don't know how much more there is to excavate in the area.

A secret passageway.

Time to start heading down.

We had to pick our way down these stairs carefully.  We put away our cameras at this point.  As they added a level of difficulty to the decent.

So photos from now on are with my iphone.  

I think this said - the south gate.

This is the spring that fed water to the city.  They had a system of cistrons that were filled from this spring as well as from rain water.

We are now down to the level we started at.  We are exhausted - our legs barely able to handle any more steps.  

But we do go up to see the cistrons.  

Then we pass a low row of buildings with this room.  It is padlocked shut.  I take a photo through the bars.

Then around the corner come these two guys.  The guy on the left introduces himself as the archologist.  They open up the room and we go in.

They are there to take some measurements.  I'm sure they have some theory about something.  The room is filled with replicas of what they think was used for the olive production.

He pointed out this urn and said it was an original and had been left unearthed.

We left them to their measuring and went to find our way back to the parking lot.  It was a long - long ways.  It was a dirt path with paths leading off it and very little signage.  We ended up having to go uphill for a ways before we met up with the steps  we had started on and could find our way back to the parking lot.  

This was way more than I had expected and I will need several days to recuperate.

9-21 Sapadere Canyon and Waterfalls

 First on our agenda is to see the Sapadere Canyon and its waterfalls.   The wooden walkway leads up the narrow canyon to the point of the largest waterfalls.  As you walk back down, it is a series of much smaller waterfalls and babbling brooks of very clear water.

Scene near the parking lot.

You take this path way for a few minutes.  It leads to the board walk and the booth where you pay the entrance fee.

The first thing I noticed was the drone hovering overhead.  Maybe the attendant uses it to see when and how many people are heading up the path.

As at the Alanya castle, we are pretty much the only people here.  There was one family of four ahead of us.

Turkish people love their signs.  The warnings are for no smoking, hold on to your kids, no diving, don't litter, etc.

Now that we've paid, we are on the wooden boardwalk.  Looks pretty easy - yes?

The scenes are below us - so beautiful.

Way up high above us the rock is no longer gray, but brown and almost yellow.

And more signs in case you have forgotten the rules, also includes no food or drinks and don't sit on the railing!

The canyon is pretty narrow.

One of the larger waterfall areas.

And finally we are at the end of the walkway with the largest waterfalls.

Changing shutter speed and aperture makes the water look different.

We then turn around and head back the way we came.  We pass a few more people.

Michael in a haze.

There is one area, about a third of the way from the bottom that opens up into an area large enough for seating and a place where you can buy drinks and gozleme.  She was making a cheese and herb gozleme so that is what we got.

Tea and snack.

She is prepared to make many many more.  The list on the left lets you know your choice of fillings.  I still want to try something other than the cheese and herb.

Our gozleme was served with olives, pickles and cherry jam.  We did not try the jam.

A last glance behind us.

And we headed into the light and the parking lot.  

The boardwalk up to the large falls started up pretty flat, but got steadily steeper.  But none was that bad.  If we had stopped at this point and called it a day all would have been fine.  But we have another stop to make - on to the ancient city of Syedra.  As we wind our way down the mountain, we pass many truckloads of young people.  The backend is open and maybe has seats around the outside - but most of the people seem to be standing and waving with excitement.  The attendant at the waterfalls will soon be very busy!