No wind today on the way from Phiselis to Perge - we by-passed Antalya, the big Turkish holiday town with its miles & miles of identical beach hotels - with 33 C it is a rather hot day
The flattest sea so far on this trip - also the hottest day!
The ancient hippodrome in Perge
We left the Carpe Diem at one of the hotel beaches, walked ashore and took a taxi to Perge which is about 5 km inland. In recent years, excavation efforts increased. There, we found our first hippodrome - a horse racing arena as you may remember from the movie Ben Hur which played in the Circus Maximus in Rom. Chariot racing was very popular in Greece and paid tribute to Helios, the sun good, who was driving his chariot every day from east to west pulled by four white horses. In 680 BC chariot racing became an Olympic Sport Discipline. Hippodromes can be found in many places in the Eastern Mediterranean.
A reminder of this thousand years old tradition looks today over San Marco Square in Venice: the Quadriga. These four horses were stolen in 1204, when Venice and the 4th Crusade sacked Constantinople. The Quadriga was decorating the capital's Hippodrome. The four horses were made in Roman time during the 2nd or 3rd century AD.
Perge's Main Street with shops and other boots on both sides and a water basin in the middle. Perge has roots back to the Hittite Kingdom. It was a well known town in Persian time and under Alexander the Great. The Romans made it the Provincial Capital of Pamphylia. It suffered the same fate as all the other big towns on the coast of Anatolia and faded away in the 7th century AD
The main fountain in Perge, feeding the water basin of the Main Street
When on site, you hear the chiseling of the stone masons who do long overdue maintenance and excavations. After years of neglect, the site caught the attention of the Turkish Ministry for Tourism. I guess the many tourists in Antalya love to come over for a site visit after a few days on the beach!
