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The population of greater Antalya must be close to one million which is a lot. Tourists come here to see the old Antalya that was a Roman trading port in the 2nd century. Cumhuriyet Meydani (Republic Square) shown here, at the edge of old Antalya is 4km from the otogar and 10 km from the airport but there is a good local bus service.
The square tower, now used as a clock tower, was part of the Roman fortifications of the old city.
The beautiful red fluted minaret on the right was built in the 13th century by the Seljuk sultan Alaeddin Keykubat I next to a church he had converted into a mosque.
The slender minaret on the left belongs to the 18th century Tekeli Nehmet Paça
mosque whose interior is shown below.
Here are the very sober mihrab and minbar of the Tekeli Nehmet Paça Camii.
And another view of Yivli Minare, the 13th century fluted minaret with the Saat Kulesi (Clock Tower), and the Tekeli Nehmet Paça Camii in the background.
I stayed in the impeccably clean pension "Mond" in Paça Camii Sodak for 10 $ a night (the house on the right with the terrace on top).
Old Antalya was touristy but it was not crowded in the off season and the people were genuinely friendly. If I remember correctly, this must be Hidirlik Sodak.
And this should be Uzum Çarsi Sodak that leads down to the port.
Antalya is really a delightful place. Remnants of the ancient Roman fortifications can be seen in this panoramic view of the port that now serves only as a yacht marina.
I can definitely recommend a visit to Antalya's museum for its extensive collection of Roman statues and ancient ceramics.
Below, Zeus and Aphrodite no less!
The beautiful Konyaalti beach further west was empty in March. I wonder how crowded it gets in summer?
That is the big question. I enjoyed Antalya in March. It was warmer than Ankara but not yet warm enough to swim so it was not crowded. I wonder however how the people that were rather friendly with me off season, would become in the summer when noisy crowds of vacationers descend on them from the north.
My next stop was Fethiye, 4 hours further west by bus. Fethiye was nice but it was cold and my bad knee was giving me trouble again as I walked 2 or 3 km from the otogar to find a room. I took a picture of this fine mosque as I went by but I hurried along and did not bother to enquire about its name. I'll have to get myself a steel knee one of these days.
This was the view from my window at the Prenses Hotel.
This was also taken from my hotel window.
These locally built for hire boats are called "gulets" which sounds strangely similar to the French name "goélette" given to similarly rigged but somewhat larger sailing boats in Quebec.
My knee felt better after a good night's sleep so I went to visit the local museum. On the way I could not resist taking a picture of this bunch of happy kids. I love to take pictures of children, they are so enthusiastic
The museum was small and not very exciting except for the stele shown below telling about the exploits of king Kaunas in Greek, Aramaic and Lycian which was the language used around here from 1200 BC until it was abandoned in favour of Greek in the first century AD.
The visit to the museum turned out to be nevertheless worth while for me as I got into a protracted conversation about the Kurds with the museum guards who had nothing else to do. Being a guest, I was careful to limit myself to asking questions in an attempt to grasp their view of the situation without showing my own perception of it. I did not learn anything about the Kurds but I did observe once more how people readily accept the "politically correct" version of their own history, spoon fed to them by the authorities to justify their behaviour. Kurds, according to my interlocutors, are only backward Turks that had not evolved like the rest of the modern Turkish nation because they chose to stay isolated in the mountains. These "mountain Turks" would like to set up a separate country but they are still savages and would be unable to run their own affairs if they did become independent, any more than Australian aborigines or native Americans would if given a chance. Moreover they are dangerous terrorists and should be eradicated like the Taliban and Al Qaeda murderers. WOW!
The Lycians buried their dead in tombs carved out of these cliffs when Fethiye was called Telmessos around 400 years BC. They had already occupied this area for perhaps as much as a millennium after migrating here with their own language and matrilineal culture from the interior.
Lycian city states, bound in a loose Federation occupied the coast from Koycegiz in the west to Antalya in the east. They became vassals of the Persians in the 6th century BC, joined the Delian Confederacy in the 5th but soon came under the influence of the Persians again. They were then dominated by Alexander the Great and by the Ptolemies before disappearing under the Romans who merged their lands with adjacent Pamphylia.
