Termessos

We made our pilgrimage to Termessos last Saturday, accompanied by our friends and colleagues the Bartleys. Termessos is an ancient site in the mountains just outside of Antalya. In the classical period it was sufficiently protected by its steep canyon approach that its inhabitants never surrounded to the expanding empires that surrounded them. They negotiated deals instead, first with Alexander the Great, later with the Romans. As a result it is smaller and sparser than places like Ephesus or Hierapolis, where you can still feel the texture of ancient city life. But it has an austere beauty, particularly looking out over the gorge from the theater.

The boys generally love climbing around the ancient sites, the rougher and less excavated the better, and Termessos should have been an ideal location. All the major buildings have crumbled to the foundations, leaving huge slabs of stone scattered about over a square mile of rugged mountainside.

(photo by Mary Hunter)

But they may be reaching their limit with ancient ruins. They were uncharacteristically low-energy, lolling about like tired seals, a little closer to the edge of the precipice than we may have liked.

(photo by Mary Hunter)

They recovered their spirits after we descended to Antalya and immediately set them in front of plates of steaming iskender kebap. Antalya itself is great in December. There are so few tourists in town that the Kaleiçi, the old city, echoes with lonesome footsteps and hushed voices at night. The guards at the famed archaeological museum indulged our lengthy shooting of family movies in the hallway, and patiently played along.

(photo by Mary Hunter)

Back in Alanya, it seems like the jig may be just about up on our Mediterranean idyll. It has rained for most of the past 36 hours, turning to torrential hail this afternoon. The ice and water were coming down too fast for the building's precarious drainage system, and we watched from the living room window as water shot up from the pipes onto the balcony like a fountain, gradually rising around the doorsill. 

Rainy season in Alanya, not much for active 8 and 11 year-olds to do. As soon as it stopped, we headed out to the beachfront promenade for a family speedwalk/jog, and twenty minutes later got caught in a new rainstorm. Cybele (Mother Nature) trying to tell us something?