Our second day in Antalya started bright and early with our driver and Achmet our guide picking us up at 7am for a day trip to Myra and Kekova Island. The hotel staff kindly provided us with picnic breakfast packs which we tucked into at the rest stop atop a mountain pass about an hour's drive away from Antalya. Looking down onto the coastal plan below we were perplexed by the silvery flatness of the landscape. What we were seeing were the rows upon rows of agricultural tunnels.
The road to Myra runs along the coast through built-up areas and between the pine-clad mountains towering over 2000m, their tops bare of vegetation. Myra lies 3km southwest of present day Demre,and dates from the 5th century BC. It prospered through supplying incense derived from the liquidamber orientalis tree to Egypt and Constantinople. The Greco-Roman theatre is impressive, as are the Lycian tombs built like houses into the two cliffs alongside it.
The Church of St Nicholas first built in the 3rd century, was crowded, mainly with pilgrims from Russia and the Eastern European countries, who lined up to place their icons and candles against the glass encased tomb of the patron saint of children and fishermen. Nicholas was the 4th century Bishop of Myra and was renowned for his generosity. His bones lay in the church until 1087 when Italian merchants raided his sarcophagus and carried them off to Bari in Italy, where they remain. First restored in 1043 when it became a Byzantine basilica, the church was again restored and given a vaulted ceiling and belfry by Tzar Nicholas 1 of Russia in the 19th century.
Another delicious lunch was served at the restaurant overlooking the picturesque bay at Cayagzi (Stream Mouth), once an important port for the shipping of grain, and in Roman times know as Andriake. Dotted around the hills were more tombs.
We boarded the boat that took us to Kekova Island at a the little village of Ucagiz
(Three Mouths), a delightful place to spend time and just chill! Dotted along the coastline are submerged saddleback tombs and perched on the hill at the nearby village of Kale (Simena in Roman times) is a castle built in 1440. Unfortunately the wind had come up and the surface of the turquoise sea was very ruffled so it was not easy to see the artefacts lying on the ocean floor when we puttered along the 7km long Kikova Island, artefacts from the city submerged by an earthquake in the 2nd century AD. However we caught glimpses of urns when the part of the deck was opened to reveal a glass section of the hull.
The temperature while we were in Antalya hovering around 25-28 degrees, we enjoyed a swim in a sheltered bay before the boat docked. The water was gloriously warm and crystal clear, the colour a sublime blue.
It was a long but pleasant drive back to the hotel which we reached at 6.30 and a superb day was brought to a close by a convivial evening over another mouthwatering meal at the hotel – Rob and Charmaine generously supplying the accompanying bottles of wine.
The road to Myra runs along the coast through built-up areas and between the pine-clad mountains towering over 2000m, their tops bare of vegetation. Myra lies 3km southwest of present day Demre,and dates from the 5th century BC. It prospered through supplying incense derived from the liquidamber orientalis tree to Egypt and Constantinople. The Greco-Roman theatre is impressive, as are the Lycian tombs built like houses into the two cliffs alongside it.
The Church of St Nicholas first built in the 3rd century, was crowded, mainly with pilgrims from Russia and the Eastern European countries, who lined up to place their icons and candles against the glass encased tomb of the patron saint of children and fishermen. Nicholas was the 4th century Bishop of Myra and was renowned for his generosity. His bones lay in the church until 1087 when Italian merchants raided his sarcophagus and carried them off to Bari in Italy, where they remain. First restored in 1043 when it became a Byzantine basilica, the church was again restored and given a vaulted ceiling and belfry by Tzar Nicholas 1 of Russia in the 19th century.
Another delicious lunch was served at the restaurant overlooking the picturesque bay at Cayagzi (Stream Mouth), once an important port for the shipping of grain, and in Roman times know as Andriake. Dotted around the hills were more tombs.
We boarded the boat that took us to Kekova Island at a the little village of Ucagiz
(Three Mouths), a delightful place to spend time and just chill! Dotted along the coastline are submerged saddleback tombs and perched on the hill at the nearby village of Kale (Simena in Roman times) is a castle built in 1440. Unfortunately the wind had come up and the surface of the turquoise sea was very ruffled so it was not easy to see the artefacts lying on the ocean floor when we puttered along the 7km long Kikova Island, artefacts from the city submerged by an earthquake in the 2nd century AD. However we caught glimpses of urns when the part of the deck was opened to reveal a glass section of the hull.
The temperature while we were in Antalya hovering around 25-28 degrees, we enjoyed a swim in a sheltered bay before the boat docked. The water was gloriously warm and crystal clear, the colour a sublime blue.
It was a long but pleasant drive back to the hotel which we reached at 6.30 and a superb day was brought to a close by a convivial evening over another mouthwatering meal at the hotel – Rob and Charmaine generously supplying the accompanying bottles of wine.
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