Ephesus, Pergamon, Troy and Gallipoli
Coming in to land at Izmir airport was something of a learning curve. I had not piloted one of these wide-bodied planes before and, having had a very long day already and with an exceptionally sore throat I really was grateful for the autopilot...... But we made it!
And then an hour's bus ride (60 miles) to our hotel and a drink (or three) with some of my fellow travellers on the terrace overlooking the inky black (spangled with cruise lights) of the Aegean whilst the raki-inspired Holiday-making Brits in the bar ranted out the choruses to Alice Doesn't Live Here Any More, [Who the fuck is Alice? Ed.]....
It was time for some somnolence.....
To be honest, I wasn't entirely sure where I was, nor exactly why. We were in a vast hotel by the sea, apparently in Kuşadasi, where, later that day I walked into the town, searching for the PTT, past the Pigeons in Hand statue (the town's name means Bird Island) and had a dip in the beautiful waters:
It's a lively resort, with a harbour for cruise ships which discharge innumerable tourists to marvel at nearby Ephesus [FFS! - you are one too! Ed.]
Apparently the registered population (c130,000) can swell to half a million when foreign visitors and all their attendant carers are counted..... But as an introduction to the joys of Türkiye it isn't bad..... So let's just run through a bit of history, to set the scene:
Keep up, if you can!
Around 3000 BC the Leleges people settled here. In the 11th century BC the Aeolians moved in, followed by the Ionians around 900 BC. From the 7th century BC the Lydians were in charge, then in 546 BC the Persians had a go, until in 334 BC Alexander the Great took over, so it was Hellenistic until the Romans conquered everywhere in the second century BC. Then in the third century AD Constantine created the (Christian) Eastern Roman Empire (later known as the Byzantine Empire) which plodded on until the Ottoman Empire established itself in 1453 (which itself lasted until the First World War, and the Turkish War of Independence in 1922 when Mustafa Kemal Atatürk founded the Republic of Turkey.....)
'Nuff history?
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.
W B Yeats
Sailing to Byzantium
So, all in all there have been a few changes.....
Apparently it was raining here last week, but we are blessed with bright sunlight and blue sky, and we have just about beaten the hordes, though they are in hot pursuit.
In a nut shell, the city was founded in the 10th century BC; it was one of twelve cities in the Greek Ionian League before it came under Roman control in 129 BC; it was written to by St Paul, and St John may have written his gospel here; it had one of the greatest libraries in the ancient world, had a theatre that could seat 24,000 people, may have had a population at its greatest of 70,000 (there has been much debate about this, but estimates of a quarter of a million are said to be unrealistic) but was certainly one of the largest cities of Roman Asia Minor (Anatolia).....
Various wars, and earthquakes, contributed to the rolling history of Ephesus, but the main reason for its eventual decline and abandonment was the silting up of its harbour and the prevalence of malaria in the marshes around it. It was completely abandoned in the fifteenth century.
Reconstructed in the 1970s, The Library of Celsus was built in 125 AD, and may have contained as many as 12,000 scrolls. The last books were taken out in 400 AD [Imagine the fines on them? Ed.]
From Ephesus we are taken up a winding road into the mountains to where, according to legend, Mary lived out her days after the crucifixion of her son. The story is that St John found her a nice quiet cottage where she would be free from any persecuting Romans, though he himself seems to have ended his days in comparative luxury in Selçuk.
Having been lost in the forests of time, remains of the house were discovered in the 19th century by following the descriptions in the reported visions of Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich (1774–1824, beatified by Pope John Paul II in 2004). There is now a shrine on the site, and it is a busy place of pilgrimage, and the faithful leave messages on scraps of paper tied to a wall....
From here it is a short drop to the town of Selçuk where we visit the 6th century basilica of St John the Apostle, where he is supposed to be buried....
From this hill we look down on the remains of the Temple of Artemis (which was one of the seven wonders of the world, though most of it has been recycled into other buildings in the area now) and the Isa Bey Mosque which was built in 1375):
And we look up towards the Byzantine Ayasuluk fortress where once one could visit but which has been appropriated by the military (and looks very like a prison, which may be a sign of the changing times.....) I would rather admire cactus flowers:
And with this in mind, we roll back to the Korumar Hotel Kuşadasi, where we dine on a variety of delights from the Turkish buffet and explore the joys of Turkish wine as the sun sinks behind the island of Σάμος (Samos).
We have an early start in the morning for a visit to Pergamon and then the long drive to the Dardanelles.
Apart from knowing vaguely about the Pergamon Press (Robert Maxwell) I know nothing about this place, and it is a surprise that this is the site of a therapeutic hospital, known then as an Asclepion Sanctuary, where in the late first century AD the physician, surgeon and philosopher Galen of Pergamon (a serious name in the history of medicine) is said to have practised.
Our excellent local guide, Mecit Bogday, also tells us that it was here, on the Via Tecta (the approach to the sanctuary) a seriously ill man collapsed, but saw two snakes drinking milk from a plate. Seeking to end his life he drank the milk, believing it to be poisoned, but then remarkably recovered, supposedly having discovered antidotes...... From this story we get the common European symbol for pharmacies of a snake entwined around a chalice (the Bowl of Hygeia, Greek goddess of hygiene, and daughter of Asclepius).....
The ruins are extensive, and include a 3,500 seat theatre, a seventy metre long cryptoporticus, a radioactive spring, and numerous archways and colonnades, (not to mention a little bar serving delicious fresh pomegranate juice!):
From the Asclepion, you can see the acropolis and the steep theatre, but it isn't until you have ascended in the cable car that you realise quite how vertiginous that is.... Almost like being in the gods at the Royal Opera House in London!
Though the resident Wheatears don't seem to mind.....
The most famous sight on the acropolis (335 metres high) would be the Temple of Zeus, but, if you wish to see it, you need to go to Berlin as the entire construction was taken away in the late 19th century and has now been reconstructed in the Pergamon Museum.....
However, you can see the amazing theatre, and the Temple of Trajan:
And you can learn about the library, which was the second largest (after Alexandria) in the ancient Greek world, with over 200,000 scrolls.
Robert Maxwell's Pergamon Press (sold to Elsevier in 1991 for £440 million) used a coin from Pergamon as its logo.
Such a learning curve.....
It's a three hour drive from Pergamon to Çanakkale (formerly known as the Dardanelles), where we stay for the night at another huge hotel, though we arrive late and leave early so it is sadly impossible to appreciate the location, which has a certain fame in that it was near here that, aged 22, in 1810, Byron swam the Hellespont, a roughly four mile stretch of water, with notoriously difficult currents, which separates Asia from Europe.
For me, degenerate modern wretch,
Though in the genial month of May,
My dripping limbs I faintly stretch,
And think I’ve done a feat today.
Byron, whose feet had been bound and damaged as a child (it is not now thought that he had a 'club foot,') was a fine swimmer (he also swam the Tagus at Lisbon and from the Lido to the Grand Canal in Venice). It was the story of Hero and Leander that inspired this reckless feat, as Byron's swim was to prove that Leander might have crossed the straits to visit his lover every night....
But since he cross’d the rapid tide,
According to the doubtful story,
To woo, and Lord knows what beside,
And swam for Love, as I for Glory;
‘Twere hard to say who fared the best:
Sad mortals! thus the gods still plague you!
He lost his labour, I my jest;
For he was drown’d, and I’ve the ague.
George Gordon, Lord Byron
Written After Swimming from Sestos to AbydosSadly we don't have time for me to have a go.....
So, next stop, Troy:
Everyone must have heard of the Wooden Horse of Troy, and something of the beauty of Helen, and the heel of Achilles, but unfortunately when we arrive the Horse is itself closed for safety reasons..... (and Helen wasn't looking too good either....)
I had heard that there wasn't much to see at Troy, and certainly, given that there were nine successive cities here, covering four thousand years, and that it was the scene of one of the most famous wars ever, it doesn't take long to get the drift. But there is more to it than I thought, and I come away with the knowledge that this was much more than a one-horse town..... [Boom, Boom! Ed.]
Back to Çanakkale, and we ferry across the Dardanelles from Asia into Europe, to find out about Gallipoli.....
As we approach we can just make out an inscription that, though my Turkish is rudimentary, says something like, Stop, traveller, this land you came to without knowing is the land which saw the end of an era.....
And you can see from this inscription where the ship docks that even the Turks need their language to be translated......
By chance we are privileged here to meet Mecit's friend and mentor, Dr Kenan Çelik, the foremost authority on Gallipoli (who also has an Master's degree for his study of the poetry of Rupert Brooke), who is wheeled out for every visiting dignitary as his knowledge is peerless:
Kenan gives us an impromptu lecture on the Gallipoli Campaign, which was waged between the Allies (British, ANZAC, Russian and French troops) and the Turks between February 19th 1915 and January 9th 1916. In this brief but bitter period, some 250,000 young men lost their lives and a similar number were seriously wounded, and at the end the Entente powers withdrew, Churchill was in the doghouse, and the Ottomans declared victory.... though this led to the Turkish War of Independence and, in 1923, the Republic of Turkey.
It is all very fascinating, but I cannot help but notice a Hummingbird hawk-moth flying past, its curled proboscis above the rosemary a reminder that life, in all its many forms, goes on.....
Despite the acres and acres of death on both sides.....
And the irony that the massive statue of a Turkish soldier is carrying a British Short, Magazine, Lee Enfield MkIII (Short Lee Enfield) - known as the Smelly - supplied to the Turks before the war [Come, you Masters of War.....Ed.]
It's been beautiful weather - not fly-blown and steamily hot as it was in the summer of 1915, nor knee-deep in frozen mud as in that winter - and we are fortunate: we are taken to an excellent fish restaurant looking out to the Sea of Marmara, where fresh sea bass, sea bream and cuttlefish (and Efes lager) abound.....
And then we settle down for four hours or more on the coach to Istanbul, from where I shall join you again soon.....
With very many thanks to all my fellow travellers, especially our friend and guide:
This is hugely interesting Richard. Thank you so much for sharing it,
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