Bergama,
Izmir,
Turkey
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Our first night in Bergama we met an Australian Couple 'Paul and Sandy' in a Restaurant who ended up being our travel buddies for the whole time in Bergama. WE shared a taxi the next day up to the top of the Hill of the Acroplis, our taxi driver packed a sad with us because we didn't want to do his tour but hey we just wanted to wander at our own pace and let the guidebook do the talking. Although not as well preserved as Ephesus there is a LOT in the way of ruins in Bergama and the whole hill which is pretty big is covered all the way to the bottom with ruins some are from around the 1st century AD and others are Byzantine ruins as the new cities were just built on top of the old ones. As Kris and I have seen the Pergamon Altar which now resides in Berlin in the museum of the same name, we were keen to see where it came from (bergama used to be called pergamon). But we were a bit stunned as the base of the altar is all thats left and its a sorry sight indeed. Can you blame the Germans for saving this amazing monument from further destruction? as the Sultan at the time let them taKE it and the Turkish authorities didnt really get onto preserving all of this stuff until the 1990's. But still it feels a little sad that the turks don't have this beautiful piece of History to call their own. One of the highlights for me was walking all the way to the bottom of the hill and through the old winding streets where the locals live. There are wonky buildings with about 2o layers of paint over the years which are now flaking away and showing a rainbow of colours on the walls, kids playing football in the streets and a hello from all of the little children we see, all chasing after us like movie stars. When we got to the bottom and the red basillica a cute old man 'Ali' came out of his local tea shop and asked us in for some tea and a chat, he was sweet so we accepted his offer and he turned out to be an interesting old dude who spoke fluent german and pretty good english which he says he taught himself at home! so he got a bit of practise in with us and Kris offerred him some english reading material as he said its pretty hard to find in Bergama. He must have been keen as when we got back to the Pension several hours later he had already dropped in to pick it up, so Kris quickly got it out and left it for him and he was back again within and hour or so to pick it up. Now that's hungry for knowledge!
So we had a pretty late lunch at a wee place which served fried sardines, yummy! and then headed up to teh Asclepion, which is an old hospital, one of the oldest I think and it bears the mark of the Carcadeus (snake and sword), I was pretty cool and the sun was setting as we walked around so we got the golden hour.
The next day we were off to Canakkale so just a short stop in bergama, but the friendly people and the really old an authentic parts to the place made it worth while.
