The weather was awful, so we kept driving as we had decided to go back to Greece and then to Italy. We took the shortest route via Çanakkale and the ferry. What we needed for the border was a PCR test. As we both had Covid in December, we were fiercely hoping that we now …
When we arrived in Izmir, the third largest city in Turkey with around 4.4 million inhabitants, it was only drizzling, and we decided to go for a stroll through the bazar and along the bay. The old Turkish and partly ancient city center was largely destroyed in the earthquake of 1957. One of the landmarks …
Our second time in Fethiye, we wanted to visit the abandoned Greek village of Kalaköy and Lycian rock tombs. But we were not sure, if the weather would allow us to visit anything. When we arrived at Kalaköy, a village in the mountains between the bay of Fethiye and the coast, it was pouring with …
The gods meant it good with us, despite a bad weather forecast we had the perfect day for a hike to the Simena castle. We started from Üçağız, from where you could also go on a boat tour to explore the sunken city at the island of Kekova. We did that trip from Demre during …
We thought that we are going to visit an ancient town we haven’t visited before, but already at a T-junction in the valley, we realised, that we had been here 2 years ago. Already on the way up, we decided to visit Rhodiapolis again. The town was founded by colonists from Rhodes. The army of Alexander …
Phaselis was an important Greek and Roman harbour city on the coast of ancient Lycia, the area we are exploring at the moment. It was founded by the Rhodians (from the Greek island Rhodes) in 700 BC. Because of its location on an isthmus separating two harbours, it became the most important harbour city of eastern Lycia and an important centre of commerce between Greece, Asia, Egypt, and Phoenicia. …
After celebrating the New Year at a very nice hotel in Side, we were on our way to the region of Lycia, west of Antalya, where we want to do some hikes again. The first one led us into The Göynük Canyon, a short and easy hike to start through a beautiful landscape. In summer …
We finally reached the Mediterranean coast and got some sunshine too. We discovered a tunnel the Romans had built to detour a river and “Moses” tree, before we visited Antakya. The Vespasianus Titus Tunnel was built in the 1st century AD for the city of Seleucia Pieria, the port of Antioch (modern Antakya). The construction …
A rainy day was perfect to visit the museum in Gaziantep, showcasing the incredible mosaics of the ancient town of Zeugma. It was founded in the early 3rd century BC as the city of Seleucia by Seleucus I Nicator, a successor to Alexander the Great, on the site where he had had the first bridge …
The sun was shining and we were on the way to Halfeti, a town at the river Euphrates, semi-submerged in a reservoir, from where we wanted to take a boat and go on a little cruise. The Birecik Dam, one of the 21 dams of the Southeastern Anatolia Project (GAP) of Turkey, is located on …
