Troy and Pergamon - two of the ancient cities

The word of the day is vulnerability.

Due to airline changes, our flight was moved a day by the airline, we only had two nights to see Troy and Pergamon.  Thus we were vulnerable to the airlines changes.

That meant a lot of driving if we wanted to visit these two rural ancient cities that were part of the center of the Hellenistic period and the Roman empire in Turkey. So we flew from Antalya to Edremit and picked up a rental car.  Edremit is a town of about 100,000 located on the western coast of Turkey.   It is between Istanbul and Izmir.   

Susanne was an English major in college and there was no way she was going to skip seeing Troy.  At one time, she was familiar with the writings of Homer.  But instead of calling on her memory from years ago, we got the Cliff Notes version of the Iliad for a refresher course.  

We drove to Troy first, currently know as Truva, and caught the ruins of Troy prior to sunset.  No one knows for sure whether The Iliad is true or fiction, but there apparently was a large city of Troy and some of Homer’s descriptions match what had been uncovered in this city and there is great evidence it is the ancient city of Troy.  We were mesmerized by the thought that we were in the presence of the actual historical nation-state of Troy and could feel the vibes. Like most of the ruins from this time it has been minimally excavated.  But what has been excavated is awe inspiring. 

The famous Trojan horse outside of the ruins.

These date back well into the second millennium BC.  Some of the earliest findings here date back to 3,900 BC.

We stayed in a small hotel by the sea in Behramkale. Truly this is a small fishing village.  It was the end of the season and we were the only guests there  When we awoke in the morning and found no hot water, we decided that this was probably our one hiccup.  We made the most of it.

These are views from our room's balcony of the harbor.  Small fishing boats were coming and going.  

We made it through the night and arose the next morning and headed to Bergama which is the ancient City of Pergamon.  Driving allowed us to see the beautiful countryside.  Life here is rural and maybe simpler, but it does not look easy.  From what we saw, the major crop was olives.  There were olive groves everywhere. There was also some cotton. We saw tractors with multiple people on them that looked like they were headed to work in the fields and groves. This did not look like easy work or an easy life.

Shepherds tending their sheep and goats.

Pergamon is not as restored as Ephesus, but it was believed to be comparable in many ways.  It sits high on the Akropolis. Fortunately, there was a gondola to take us to the top of the Akropolis. Here are some pictures.  

We didn't get a good picture of it but the Theater was on a sharp, sloping side of the hill and is very well preserved.  You can see a little here in the lower left hand corner.

On another hill in the valley on the other side of Bergama, we found the ancient hospital, a place of healing. It was lightly excavated compared to some of the other sites but it was very interesting to find a hospital. We heard that more has been excavated but then covered back up as there was not enough money to restore what was found. They had multiple modalities of treatment including mineral baths, medicinal treatments, blood letting and even psychotherapy.  The story is that some wealthy person was traveling in Greece and when he got sick, the Greeks took him into their Asklepion (hospital).  After healing he decided he would establish one at Pergamon and so he did and this was it.

One of the soaking pools used in healing therapy.

A theater in the hospital.

A view from our room in Bergama.

One of the scariest moments on the trip was when we found ourselves going through Bergama's old town's extremely narrow alleys. In fact we had less than 6 inches on each side of the car when we realized how tight it was.  We were afraid to backup because of the tight spaces and afraid to go forward for the same fears.  We contemplated Susanne getting out and directing but she could not have opened the door.  So we drove forward and made it.  

On top of this, I had just had my worst episode of claustrophobia in years.   A few days earlier, in Cappadocia, we had gone to see a 'Turkish Show' with Turkish entertainment.  We did not realize that it would be performed in a cave. It was a large cave but had only one entrance with doors that opened inward and a couple of hundred people. My anxiety and claustrophobia was so great that we had to leave the show. Later we were to discover the same claustrophobic feelings in Istanbul in the Grand Bazaar.  So many people were squeezed into shop-lined walkways that kept getting narrower and narrower as we went deeper into the bazaar. At the end, we just had to get out and go back another day.

We both love how travel forces us to face our vulnerabilities, sometimes painfully. In the first case, we left the cave with my heart racing anxiety.  In the second case, we ware too deep into the narrow streets and too convinced that we could go through to realize that we were enclosed, unable to open the doors if needed and probably incapable of backing out.  When we realized this afterwords, it was another moment of anxiety.  The same feelings in the shops of the bazaar. Susanne had the same feeling walking at night on the sidewalks of Istanbul. The sidewalks had been narrowed by restaurants that pushed their seating almost to the street. There was little room for pedestrians and yet there were a ton of pedestrians. So you'd find yourself passing each other in the streets with passing cars that had no concern about the pedestrians. We found it to be quite unnerving. We never had a feeling of being unsafe in the cities or countryside, but only had to deal with our own self-induced anxieties. Yes, vulnerability is the word of the day.  We all have them but travel makes us push the envelope facing them. 

For the most part, driving in Turkey was uneventful.  We drove mostly in rural areas. I think I got my picture taken by a speed camera. I'm just hoping that their desire to pursue someone through a small independent rental car agency is minimal and unsuccessful. Otherwise, next time I travel through Ezime I may have a warrant out for me.  

This was to be our last view of ancient ruins..  Most of what we would see in Istanbul was from the 4th century forward, after Constantine named the city Constantinople and established the Eastern Roman Empire there.  A lot of the things to see in Istanbul are from the Ottoman period - the time of the Sultans.  It was OK with us, we were beginning to run out of absorption capacity for the Roman era. Both Troy and Pergamon were well worth the effort including the anxieties.