Well, yesterday was that time.
Friends Katja and Yves had overnighted at the parking lot, and we arrived just as they were heading in to buy their tickets.
The entrance road to Miletus.
Tickets cost 25 lira ($2.35 CAD, $1.85 USD) per person.
Compare that to the much more popular Ephesus which costs ten times more, plus the entrence to the terrace houses. I mention this because Miletus (back in the day) was a powerhouse city on the same level as Ephesus, and in my mind, the ruins at Miletus are much more natural. Don't get me wrong, Ephesus is a great ancient city to visit, but there are other options in Turkiye (Miletus and Aphrodisia for example) which are much cheaper, have just as much to offer, and without the crowds.
In fact, for most of our three hour visit, we had the place totally to ourselves, and this was on a Sunday!
The ancient theater is in very original condition.
Can you see Ruth standing in the middle?
The theater was built in four stages, the first stage being completed between 300 and 250 BC. By the time the Romans completed the fourth stage, it was a huge complex that could seat 15,000 people.
Yves, in one of the remaining seats.
Wow. We love exploring these kinds of places.
One of the things we really enjoyed at Miletus is the ability to wander where ever you please. There are no safety barriers of any kind, so you are responsible for where you put your feet. However, I do understand the need for these kinds of things at Ephesus and other busy sites, which is why we like the lesser visited sites.
Look at that roof!
There is broken pottery everywhere.
Pretty snail.
The area is prone to flooding at this time of year.
Me!
A depiction of what things would have looked like back in the day.
Ruth, reading one of the information boards.
Some buildings had both water and heating systems.
Some of the rock carving is still in amazingly good condition.
The site is huge, and very little excavation work has been done.
How old is this walkway?
Me!
The mosque in behind has been recently renovated, and the covered ruins are old baths.
Gravestones.
Mosques can look interesting from the outside, but there's usually not much to see on the inside.
We had a good three hours wandering around before some showers moved in. I actually wanted to go back and see more of the theater, but we never made it back. Had a good night's sleep, and today we are headed inland a bit to a lake.
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Wow!! What a sight! My imagination went wild thinking of the people who built and lived there. The sad part is a lot of death happened in those arena too. I wonder how people can hear what the speaker is saying so high up in the stadium.
ReplyDeleteIt was definitely a fantastic sight to see. We always think of the people that built these cities and all we can do is shake our heads, trying to figure out how they did it with the tools and technology that they had at the time, but here are those buildings many of them still standing today in some form or another. The theaters were used more for plays, dancing, singing and mimes, rather thank for bloodshed. From the information that I can find, more of that type of stuff was done in the stadiums and coliseums.
DeleteThe acoustics were very good in the theaters. We tested it once at one particular theater where I was down on the "stage" and Kevin was high up in the stands and all I had to do was talk in a relatively normal voice and he was able to hear me.
Beautifully amazing! Away from tours and tourist traps.
ReplyDeleteIt really was Chris! We would much rather visit a place like this to say Ephesus.
DeleteWow, this site is awesome!! Well preserved site!! Enjoying your travels!! Love your adventures!
ReplyDeleteWe really enjoyed this site too. It was great not to have restrictions as to where we could or could not go. The ruins themselves had not had a lot of restoration work done to them and the price was great along with hardly any visitors, just the way we love it. :-)
DeleteWe are glad to hear that you are enjoying our adventures, we have a lot more coming up.
Amazing. To bad time travel is science fiction. Would be wonderful to travel back and see how the other half really lived.
ReplyDeleteAgreed! It would be incredible to go back in time and see how they lived but for us it would be more to see what the actual cities looked like with all the buildings intact and in their glory, with fountains working and the market place in the agora filled with people, produce, products and livestock. What an amazing sight all that would have been!
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