Day 26 - Pamukkale to Kusadasi

This morning after breakfast we headed to the temple of Aphrodite at amazing Aphrodisias after following the Meander River Valley full of twists and turns which gives us the word meander.

The site is another Roman City 5000AD and has the best preserved Roman  Stadium in the world. The stadium has had little excavation as it has always  been visible. At one stage the locals used it as a stock yard. We spent a good hour here exploring the city and museum before driving 270 km to Kusadasi. 

 

 

Aphrodisias was a artistic centre and so it has many different styles of carvings, columns  and structures as the stone mansions used this to demonstrate their skills. the mosaics at the roman bath were unfortunately covered by carpet to preserve them but they are meant to be great examples of art work for the era as well. At one of the sites we went to earlier in the week true had covered the mosaics with dirt and gravel where you walked to preserve them which is a shame, hopefully one day they can uncover them and then cover the with glass so you can see them.

One thing I must mention is the cats, both Greece and Turkey have and abundance of cats. The cats are the ones who beg here and not the dogs. They are quite forward and come up to you where ever you go. You do see dogs but they mostly seem t o keep their distance, most of the are in really good condition as well as the cats. The street dogs are tagged which means they are disease free and people feed them and look after them quite well. 

 

 Once we arrive and check-in to our seaside rooms we headed of the local bazaar. Noel and Donna both bought leather jackets after Donna's tough negotiation skills from the shop we had gone to on our cruise and promised we would be back. They loved us so much they gave us wine after our purchases while we waited for some minor adjustments to the sleeves on Donnas jacket. We must have paid too much.

 

Donna's tough negotiation skills come on handy later as I was after a Turkish lamp and one shop wanted $150aus and in the end we got one for $150try which is half the price at another shop. Now however I need another suitcase to get this breakable stuff home so after purchasing that we headed back to the hotel to enjoy the view from our balcony with a couple of gins and beers before dinner.

 

I managed to be good and have chicken yiros with salad until we hit the most amazing dessert buffet you have ever seen. I only did one side, there was another side but I decided not to look. The good thing here is they have very small portions so you can try a few and not feel so guilty.

 

It is a very mild night so we enjoyed sitting and relaxing blogging and catching up on emails in the room over looking the lights of Aegean sea. Until to tomorrow J&N