Mighty. Colossal. Massive. Huge.
Some of the words describing the Temple of Apollo in the coastal town of Didim, Turkey. And since it was directly along our route yesterday, it only made sense to stop in and see it!
We got packed up and hopped in the car around 10:30am. There was no direct route to either the temple, or our destination at Yalikavak, so we first had to drive around the industrial city of Söke.
Tuesday, we relaxed for the morning and then drove the short distance into the national park on the other side of where we are staying. We had done a short section of the trail last time we were there, and we wanted to do some more.
It's actually about an 18 km (11 mile) hike one way, but you have to either have someone meet you on the other side, or take a Dolums (local minibus) back home. It would have been an all day event and you would have to get an earlier start than we did. Still, we managed to do an in and out hike of 12.2 kms (7.5 miles) so we were happy with that.
Monday was a busy day for us, so I'm going to break it into two separate blog posts again. Check back later today for part two!
The ancient city of Ephesus is the most visited archeological site in Turkey. In 2019, two million people passed through the turnstiles. That's an average of 5,500 people per day. Many of them are on cruise ship day trips because the port of Kuşadası is nearby.
We had asked our hosts here when the weekly market is so that we can buy our fruits and veggies. They said there is one in nearby Davutlar on Sundays, so we stopped in there yesterday morning. It turned out to be quite a bit larger than any of the other markets we've been to, and it included many other goods besides fruits and veggies. Ruth bought some socks, and I bought some shoes!
And, of course we got our supply of fruits and veggies.
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First of all, thank you so much for your supportive comments here, on our facebook page, and on our MeWe page regarding the passing of Ruth's father. It means a lot to us.
On Saturday, we decided to go for a hike up in the hills of the national park behind where we are staying. There is no official access to the park at this point... it's simply a bunch of old dirt roads and paths, and in fact we're not even certain that where we were is part of the actual park because there are no marked boundaries at that part.
Ruth's father, Tony Crowe, passed away peacefully in his sleep on Thursday night. He was 85 years old.
We knew it was coming, and in fact there is a bit of a feeling of relief that it has now happened. Of course it's still sad, but he had no quality of life the last year or so. If any of you have ever dealt with a family member with Alzheimer's disease, then you know that it doesn't get better... only worse. And the worst part of it is that many people can hang on for many years while their minds and eventually their bodies slowly disintegrate.
But we have two more to go! We feel like we've seen a lot in our one month here so far, but we haven't done as much hiking as we would like to have done, despite the fact that we have now walked a total distance of 220.1 kms (136.5 miles) in Turkey.
But much of that has been walking in ruins sites, doing a power walk, or just out exploring. The last week of November, we move to Kaş where we will have access to the 500 km (300 mile) Lycian Way hiking trail. We plan to do several day hikes on the trails in that area where we plan to stay for two weeks.
Wednesday was a travel day as we drove from Denizli to Güzelçamlı. I had looked at the route ahead of time, and it didn't look very exciting. Mostly four lane highway that went through some larger towns. It was not a limited access highway, so when it went through towns you had traffic and traffic lights to deal with.
So I had found a stopping point around half way where there was supposed to be an interesting looking 2,000 year old Roman bridge. I didn't do any further research, and just dropped a pin on my mapping program.
I've mentioned several times the problems that we've had with Facebook. I got into detail about it in a blog post titled Facebook has some big problems, and I've mentioned a couple of updates recently about our ongoing issues with them.
What Facebook now offers is not the same as the Facebook we signed up for ten years ago. At that time, what you saw in your newsfeed was what you wanted to see. If I "followed" a page or a group, it's because I was interested in it. Now, Facebooks algorithms only show me what it thinks I should see. Along with hundreds of advertisements.
This is the second blog post today... if you missed the first one, you should really read it before this one...
https://www.travelwithkevinandruth.com/2020/11/the-travertine-calcium-pools-of.html
So yesterday we went to the calcium pools at Pamukkale. But at the same location, and included in your ticket price, is the ancient city of Hieropolis. To us, it makes sense to explore both, but it seemed that most people were only interested in the water and the calcium formations.
When most people come to visit Turkey, they have three things in mind... Istanbul, Cappadocia, and Pamukkale. It's almost like nothing else matters.
Something like visiting Machu Picchu in Peru, or Niagara Falls in Canada.
And normally, a popular tourist attraction is popular for a reason. There is something about each of the places mentioned above that makes it worth visiting. That is, if you can put up with the hoards of tourists and the inflated prices that go along with it.
Although we totally enjoyed ourselves at the Aphrodisias Ruins site on Friday, we didn't really get much in the way of exercise. We had to make up for that a little bit on Saturday, so we had a bit of an early lunch and then walked over to the big Adalet Park here in the city of Denizli.
Adalet Park is the largest city park here in Denizli, a city that prides itself on its park space. There are sports facilities, a cafe, a large picnic area, a duck pond, walking paths, and lots of places to just sit and watch the world go by.