A Ruin with Quite a View!

Hello!

Today was our day to move from Fethiye to Dalyan, about an hour down the coast.  We’ve never stayed there before but have visited several years ago, when we wanted to visit Kaunos site.  I remember thinking to myself at the time, “This would be a fun place to return to some day.”  So, I reserved a place at the Hotel Palmyra, and figured we were all set. 

Me and a "friend" in front of the museum

Bi-lingual stele from Kaunos

Teapot?

First off, though, we were down for breakfast around 8 am, and then off to the Fethiye Museum.  I had thought that we visited it several years ago (who can remember from 2012?) but when we walked in today, neither of us has the foggiest recollection. I’m going to have to go back to our 2012 blog book of the trip and see (which is the wonder of blog books, as they truly do make the best souvenirs ever! Thanks, Katy, Hil & RRZ!)

It is a small museum, but it does have some interesting pieces from Letoon, Xanthos and Tlos. 

Beautiful mosaic from Letoon

Small altar

Lycian side of trilingual stele

What we really were impressed by were two stone stelae – one a bi-lingual tablet (Carian and early Greek) found at Kaunos, and the second was a tri-lingual tablet (Aramaic, early Greek and Lycian) from Letoon.  Having a language that is known and then is presented with another untranslated language has really proven the key for scholars and translation, i.e. The Rosetta stone, now at the British Museum.  They also had a house full (or garden full, may be more to the point) of Roman-era lions.  On the way back to the hotel to check out, we also passed another Lycian sarcophagus that R was able to photograph. 

Sorry...couldn't resist; ladies room at museum

Lions everywhere!

Lycian sarcophagus in town

Tlos amphitheatre

Tlos temple

Rock tombs and fortress

Back to the hotel about 10:30 am and checked out.  We will really miss the Yacht Classic – but certainly not for long!  As Dalyan was only an hour or so up the road, we decided to visit Tlos, which we missed yesterday, as I needed to get back for my Hamam experience. 

Another sarcophagus

Heading to Tlos

Rock tombs with Ottoman fortress on top

Lovely drive into the countryside, and suddenly, there was Tlos!  The ruins are so exquisite and extensive that we actually drove to the end of the site, and started there, working out way back to the main entrance and buying tickets.  It turns out that Tlos is on the UNESCO Tentative list – although we’re really not sure what they’re tentative about, as the ruins definitely are all there for all to see! 

We stopped first at the big Roman era amphitheatre, which is very much in a tumble-down condition, and has been cordoned off so you can see it, you just can’t be in it.  Across and down the road from there, are the remains of several bathhouses and temples.  Again, signage warning not to enter but plenty of things to see anyway, plus a stunning view down into the valley (without plastic, surprisingly enough!) The site has been in existence allegedly from 4000 BC, with the Lycians, Persians, Romans and Byzantines being the main site occupiers over time. 

Bath house

Small bath house

Stadium; about 10 rows of seats

And, unlike Xanthos, it appears that Tlos, because of its high position on a mountain top, was never captured.  Besides the amphitheatre, there is a lovely stadium, with the remains of a water-flowing fountain running down one side of it.  You can still hear the rush of water from a stream on site.  (Break here, while we went to dinner … and by time we got back I was falling asleep, so am continuing now on Wednesday morning!)

Another distinctive feature of Tlos are their tombs – they have both Lycian carved sarcophagi as well as rock cut tombs – burial places literally carved out of the rock hillside, and usually marked with a very specific kind of door carving.  Many places in this area (former Lycia) have rock cut tombs in their vicinity, (principally, I think, because there are so many mountains all around) and many of them are really inaccessible now.  One wonders in some cases, how people were even able to carve them, so hard to reach are they. But several of the tombs at Tlos are accessible, and while all have been opened and cleared out, we were able to see the carved benches in several of them.

Looking out over the stadium; water feature at left

Lycian tombs at Tlos

Me at a rock cut tomb

The view from (almost) the top was nothing short of spectacular, and we were SO happy to see a dearth of plastic.  And I say almost to the top, because, believe it or not, a former Ottoman fortress was built right at the top of the hill, which has now been deserted.  We really had no interest in seeing that!

From Tlos, it was time to head to Dalyan, our next destination.  The road was actually excellent all the way along, although there was an interesting place where a tunnel had been burrowed through a mountain, and one had a choice!  Either pay the 450 TL (around $1.21 US) or you had to exit the road, pass along what Robert claims was a dirt road around the tunnel, and get back on at the other side.  We, needless to say, opted for the tunnel, and very soon we were in Dalyan.

Well … we found the right hotel, and it turns out – surprise! – that it’s really closed for the season, but that’s okay, we can stay anyway!  From the outset, I wasn’t happy.  You can generally tell the condition of a place by looking at it, and while I had some doubts about the place when I had booked it, the reviews were fairly good.  However, once again, we’re talking about a place in the dead of winter (even though it did get up to 60 degrees yesterday!!!!) We were shown to our room, and the first problem made itself apparent – again, cement building, and it was COLD – and turns out, we couldn’t find any source of heat!  What we thought was the heating and cooling unit, appeared to only have cooling!  Great!  Then, I turned on the water in the bathroom to wash my hands – and it spat at me – obviously a great deal of air in the pipes from being turned off, and while we ran it, nothing close to even warmish came out of the tap.  Add to this that the promised WiFi signal apparently didn’t reach our room, and we were out of there. 

benches inside rock tomb

Largest tomb; hard to reach!

The gal who worked at a place along the street but had been deputed to let us in, told us that “really” the place was still closed.  So … back to Fethiye and our favorite, Yacht Classic!  We even have our same room, 301, which was nice and warm and clean and ready to take us back.  Very thankful!  (Robert did inquire about our four remaining hotels.  Two of them are Hilton’s, which we are assuming are fine, one is a large hotel in Canakkale that apparently caters to businessmen, and the last is our new place in Selcuk – which again, looks fine – but as we know from today’s experience, looks can be deceiving!  So we have our fingers crossed!)

Our mezze platter - great salads!

R's lamb shish

And my cheeseburger (overcooked) and fries!

Back in Fethiye, we thought that possibly we would try another restaurant other than the hotels.  One of the top rated restaurants on Tripadvisor is an Indian restaurant on a beach on the other side of town, about 20 minutes away (lots of traffic).  We made our way over there – really a lovely area, with some really nice houses and apartment buildings – parked, and walked down to the beach road (which is non-traffic) – and found Calis Plaji Indian Restaurant!  Only to read that it’s only open on Fridays and Saturdays at the moment!  BUMMER.  So, decided to head back to the hotel, and then walk the minute or two down the street to the Yacht Boutique Hotel (sister hotel to ours, The Yacht Classic) and try their rooftop restaurant.  Did that – and guess what?  Their restaurant’s closed as well – “but we have another restaurant” – yeah, yeah, we know.  So guess where we ended up for dinner last night?  You’re right!  You’ve guessed it!  Yacht Classic Hotel!

For starters this time, we ordered both the stuffed mushrooms that we’d had the night before (which are wonderful!) as well as their mezze platter.  This came out with four things – a wonderful Turkish potato salad, an amazing eggplant salad, an interesting cheese/carrot/yoghurt salad, and finally, a very good tomato salad.  All in all, a great choice!  Then for mains, I opted for:  a cheese burger and chips, and R had their lamb shish, which he loved.  By the time we were done, I was falling asleep at the switch, so back to the room without any dessert, and I was in bed by 8 pm.  Slept until almost 6 this morning, so obviously I needed it.  Today, I will start the blog earlier; I hate missing a day, as there is always so much to write about! 

Take care, and lots of love!

m

xxx