Blog ≫ 2012 ≫ Turkey 2012 - We walked to some historic sites
Being the third part of my holiday roundup
Turkey is scattered with history. I suppose everywhere is, but it's noticeable when it's pillars and stuff. The most visually striking thing we saw was Temple of Apollo (below). It's out "on the end" of Side and looks great. I am sure I could see metal reinforcing rods in the base of this bit that is standing, which makes me think it's been reconstructed from bits. It would be very suspicious if the rest of it fell down and just this chunk was still standing neatly anyway. It's on a nice little artificial harbour, where some nice bars and restaurants were too. We came in to Side on our first full day on holiday for a look around, on the bus. Very brave I thought, getting a local bus, but they're brilliant, it's one or two Lira for the journey and they're very frequent. We heard from the guide or in a book or something that they'd be busy and would probably have goats, but we saw no goats. The bus station is just outside the town so there's a little walk along a road of ruins up to the town gate1.
Clare and I walked in again along the beach2 one evening. It's a really nice walk but Clare found it a bit hard going because of the soft sand. We stopped in the Apollo bar, the one nearest to the temple as we knew it was a nice spot3 to watch the sun set4. The bar seems to have cheekily annexed part of the ruin, and they have some chunks of ancient pillars and so on propping up some of the bar.
We went back in to the restaurant where we'd stopped for a drink on our first visit as it was nice. Clare had lamb shank on the recommendation of the chief waiter (or did he say chef waiter) Sezgin. I had the vegetable stew, most Turkish main courses are not ideal for vegans, but it was very good.
We got the bus back to the hotel this time round, I walked back along the beach on another afternoon...
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