Ruins by Mia

Daddy is getting artistic! This was at Bergama.

Since we left Istanbul I think what we have been doing can be described accurately as ‘ruin hopping’ (definition-- travelling from one ancient ruin (A.K.A. pile of cool old rocks) to another with little else in between besides eating, sleeping, and, of course, driving to the next one!). Mommy has strategically planned this ruin hopping experience so there is build up from the most boring (quite ruined) to the best (just sort of ruined) ruins. That was a good idea because if we saw the best first we would have just gotten bored at the rest of them.  Our first ruin was Troy which was definitely cool but mostly because it is as famous and old as it is. That was the most ruined of our ruins so the actual ruin part was a bit anticlimactic. It was quite mind boggling how old that particular moss covered pile of square-ish stones was, though.

Daddy is making a wish with 10 rupees!

WE ARE INSIDE THE TROJAN HORSE!!!

                 Our next ruin, Bergama, was much better and is actually my favorite out of all of them. It was on the top of a hill overlooking a town that was all red roofs and minarets on one side and a big lake on the other. All of this was surrounded by hills/midget mountains (if you know what I mean? sorta shaped like mountains but shorter…). At prayer time the calls from the tops of the minarets echoed all around in the valley and sounded more like guys yelling gibberish into broken speakers than usual. It actually sounded like there were lots of different guys yelling different gibberish at the same time into broken speakers, because we could hear all the speakers from the entire town, and there were a lot of them! The effect was quite cool. The ruins themselves were really cool because there were still lots of columns standing with a few marble beams between them. The marble was pretty well preserved so there were still carvings in them and even a headless and armless statue (gasp)! There was a covered area with some cool mosaic floors underneath where they were protected from the weather. The whole thing was really big and covered most of the hill it was on. It took us a few hours to get through it all and at the end we had to hike all the way back to the top!

Kayley in front of the Library of Celcus. Too bad you can't see both stories though.

Cool carvings and stuff.

                The next ancient city was Ephesos which is my second favorite ruin out of all or them because it was not as… ruined. There was still a lot of stuff standing and my favorite part was the library of Celcus. The grand two story front was still standing even though most of the rest of it was gone. There were 5 statues of women in cavities on the front, two of which were pretty much complete (they had their heads which is really unusual).  The other two were headless but it was cool to see statues anyway because usually they move them to museums and make you pay to see them. There was also a bunch of cool carvings in the walls and on the ceiling.  The bad thing about Ephesos was the fact that it was way more touristy than our last one had been. Also, there were a gazillion cats wandering around and I couldn't resist petting them but since daddy is allergic he made me stop. It was torture!!! I just took a million pictures of them instead. They were really extremely cute!

The most beautiful kitty ever!

            By then we were all ruined out so mommy had something slightly different planned for us. We went to Pamukkale which is pretty much a mountain covered in travertine. There are hot springs on the mountain that are rich in calcium so it deposites it on the mountain. There are cool terraces that fill with warm water and people can go dip in them. The rock is shaped with cool ripples and lumps everywhere from the water. In the deeper pools the water is a really pretty blue color that is from the minerals settleing  (or something?). We got to wade in the pools and the built up silty stuff at the bottom feels really cool on your feet. It's all slimy and squishy and soft. After we finished looking at that we went to the ruins (Hieraopolis) that were on the top of the hill. Those were nothing special because we had seen so many already.We got through those ruins part pretty quickly! I bet if we came back in a few years they would seem really cool, though. When we got back to the parking lot after that one we had to push the car for the first time. I think is was ruined out too!