Turkey 2026 - Day 10 Antalya

November 1 - I'm writing today with a heavy heart. It was announced on Friday that a pair of Turkish newlyweds and a French woman were killed in the collapse of one of the fairy chimneys at the Göreme Open‑Air Museum that we visited on Day 7. Five other people were injured. The authorities believe that the structure was weakened by recent heavy rains. While this is just part of the erosional processes that created the fairy chimneys in the first place, it is still a tragedy. I hope that this will encourage the authorities to inspect the fairy chimney sites that are open to visitors more often.

Today, we are going back into Lycian history. The Lycians were peoples that occupied the Leke peninsula directly to the west of Antalya. Beginning in the 14-15th century BCE, Lycian culture continued until they were conquered by the Persians in 546 BCE and later by the Roman Empire under Alexander the Great. Under the Romans, there was a sort of home-rule of Lycia by the Lycian League. This was an early attempt at establishing a federation under republican principles of government. These principles came to the attention of the framers of the US Constitution and particularly James Madison.

Our drive to the Leke peninsula begins with a ride alongside Güllük Mountain National Park and get a good view of the Taurus mountains which make up the interior of the peninsula:

Our first stop is the ancient city of Xanthos (near present-day Kınık). This is in a broad valley following the river Xanthos. It doesn't look much like a city; it is more like a collection of orange and olive groves with a lot of greenhouses:

where, our guide tells us rather tongue-in-cheekly, that they grow perfectly looking and completely tasteless tomatoes for export to Russia! Our first indication that this area used to be anything of importance is this Roman road:

It still looks pretty good after more than 2,000 years! Our guide tells us that the Xanthos river used to take up almost the entire width of the valley, so the Romans built an extraordinarily long bridge to span it. Here is one of the 40 arches that supported the bridge:

Across the street from the bridge are some of the many Lycian hillside tombs:

In the second picture, you can see in a language that looks a bit like Greek. This would have described the Lycian family and not the occupant because the Lycians reused their tombs. When the next generation passed away, they would remove the previous occupant of the tomb, cremate them, place their ashes in a funerary jar and install the next family member. You can see in both pictures the color that remains from these once brightly decorated tombs.

We stop at a small roadside restaurant for tea and then head on to what is the main archeological site of Xanthos. Here are a couple of pictures of the ruins:

Although a team from Austria has been working at this site for several decades, there are a lot of pieces just lying around. For a site that has been here through the Lycians, the Persians, the Greeks and Romans, the Ottomans and the Byzantine Empire, a lot of the pieces were reused. Here is a wall from the Byzantine period that clearly used the bottoms of columns from the Roman period:

On the other side of this wall is the site of a church; you can see that the river now goes down the central street of the city from the Roman era:

There are a lot of people at the site today.  It turns out that it is a group of scientists training students on how to make water quality measurements. There is also a reconstruction of what archeologists think a Lycian house might have looked like based on the design of their tombs:

Of course, it uses only tongue-and-groove technology, and it remains reasonably cool in even the hottest weather.

Our next stop on our Lycian tour is the ancient city of Myra. The first thing that we see is this fantastic theatre:

It is a little hard to tell from the picture, but the whole theatre is perhaps 30 feet below ground level. Alluvial deposits from the river Myra piled up and, despite the best efforts of the populous, eventually buried the city which was then abandoned. This may explain why the theatre is in such good shape. It had an estimated capacity of about 4,000 people making the population of Myra during Roman times in the low 10,000's. The big arches on the left were the way out of the theatre on one side and there is another set of them just to the right of this picture. The wall in the center is the back wall of the stage, and the stands are divided into three sections. The lower half of the main stands were reserved for the most privileged men. The top half of the main section was for the lower-class men and the very top, set off from the main section by walls was for women and children.

Like Xanthos, there are a lot of pieces laying around, but many of them are quite interesting:

This would have been the lintel above the columns on entering the theatre and the faces would have had brightly colored stones or glass for eyes.

Behind the theatre is another Lycian necropolis:

The picture on the right was the tomb of a high-status person. Unlike the other Lycian tombs, he would not have been removed and cremated. His family would have been buried in neighboring tombs. That allowed the family to carve his life like image into the stone.

After a nice (and too large) lunch at an outdoor cafe, we walk across the city square to the Church of Saint Nicholas. Outside is a nice statue of Nicholas:

Nicholas was a Greek priest in the late 3rd-early 4th century CE and is supposedly the patron saint of sailors, merchants, archers, repentant thieves, children, brewers, pawnbrokers, toymakers, unmarried people, and students in various cities and countries around Europe.

In fact, there is no historical mention of Nicholas until about 200 years after his death in 343. What is known is that he was born in Patara on the western coast of the Leke peninsula and at some point, became Bishop of Myra. This was a bad period for early Christians as the Roman Emperor Diocletian tried to wipe out Christianity from the Roman Empire. Nicholas was supposedly jailed and tortured by the Romans.

There is not enough room in this blog to talk about all of the things that Nicholas supposedly did or the complete lack of proof that he did any of them. But here is the story that connects Nicholas to Christmas. Nicholas was born into a wealthy family; his uncle was the Bishop of Myra and was responsible for Nicholas becoming a priest. Nicholas inherited his parents' money when they died in an epidemic and he quickly established a reputation for giving his money away. It is said that Nicholas heard of a man who had once been wealthy, but whose fortune had been stolen by "agents of Satan". The now destitute man had three daughters. Since he could not arrange proper dowries, his daughters would stay unmarried and were likely to be sold off into prostitution. Nicholas did not want to bring attention to himself, so he reportedly went to the man's house in the middle of the night and threw a purse of gold coins through an open window. The man immediately arranged for the marriage of his oldest daughter. After the wedding, Nicholas went back to the house at night and threw another purse of gold coins through the window. Again, the man arranged for the marriage of his second daughter. After that marriage, the man supposedly stayed awake for two nights straight and caught Nicholas in the act the third time. The father fell on his knees to thank him, and Nicholas made him promise not to tell anyone what he had done.

Two hundred years after his death, Roman Emperor Theodosius II ordered that a new church be constructed in Myra dedicated to Nicholas and built over the site of the church where Nicholas had served as bishop. Here are some of my pictures from the church:

Nicholas' tomb is in the back of the third picture, but there are no human remains there. Current archeological research indicates that Nicholas might have originally been buried on the Turkish island of Gemele, about 25 miles west of Myra and close to his birthplace. In the 7th century, the island was vulnerable to Arab raiders, so his remains were moved inland to Myra. Then in the 11th century, the Turks temporarily gained control of the Leke peninsula. Christians were worried that they would no longer have access to this holy site, so a group of Italian sailors went to Mura and in 1087 CE, took most of the larger bones to the newly constructed Basilica di San Nicola in Bari, Italy.

Venice, who was then the major Italian power, took note of what Bari had done and decided that they would go back to Myra to get the remainder of Nicholas' skeleton. They first constructed the Basilica of San Nicolò al Lido on a small island next to Venice. In 1100 CE as part of the First Crusade, they stopped in Myra and removed the rest of the bones and later placed them in the Basilica.

Our final stop of the day is at the Simena Castle. Our guide describes this as a crusader castle but said that it was used to defend the Byzantine Empire from attacks from the crusaders. Online information indicates that it was likely constructed by the crusaders in the 14th century. In any case, the views are quite stunning:

This ride back is pretty long and we arrive after dark. We had been searching for a particular restaurant and this time we find it. It was established in 1954 and is now operated by the 3rd generation of the same family. The food and wine are excellent. We stop at the same sweets shop again and then head back to the hotel for some much-needed rest. Tomorrow, we have a free day and are thinking of visiting one of the local waterfalls. Stay tuned!