Tag Archives: Alanya

Day 306 – Southsun groove

The roadworks picked up at some point in the morning. So although the light morning haze kept the sun from burning us out of our tent, we got up eventually. The morning ritual was performed efficiently if a bit lacklustre in the energy department.

The whole island is taken up by another fort, just off-shore from the castle

The whole island is taken up by another fort, just off-shore from the castle

Soon after though, the rhythm of the road started coming back to us. The wall of high-rise vacation bunkers loosened up and soon we finally felt like riding along the Mediterranean. There was a cool double fortress / castle very early on that got us a bit excited. One castle stood on shore, the other maybe 500m into the sea, fully occupying a small island there. All nicely illuminated by the morning sun shining down a now clear blue sky.

The first planned stop were the caves of Heaven and Hell. The Gorge of Hell is a massive sinkhole that ancient Greek colonists believed Zeus imprisoned the 100 headed monster Typhon. The view down the almost vertical shaft from a little viewing platform perched over one edge was a good warming up exercise. The real star was the massive cave at the bottom of the chasm called Heaven.

The sparsely lit cave was indeed beautiful

The sparsely lit cave was indeed beautiful

After a brief climb down to the “bottom” of the open chasm, an enormous cave opened up at one end of it, leading way deeper into the earth. The footing going down was treacherous, but we managed to reach the lowest part without a tell-tale “mud butt”. The cave was huge, going down almost 200m and was in places maybe 70m high.  The ancients believed that the river at the very end to be an access to the underground river Styx – not for us though, since the river was currently dry 🙂 It was really cool, nonetheless. On our way out, we had a short breather and rest at the Chapel of the Virgin Mary, build in the 5th century by the Byzantines to let a raucous bunch of teenage school kids pass.

Great lunch right at the sea

Great lunch right at the sea

On our way to the next destination, we had lunch at a beautiful and quiet restaurant right on the water’s edge. The eccentric proprietor served us a beautiful vegetarian bean dish and we enjoyed the sounds of the calm sea for a while.

Said next destination were the ruins of Anemurium. This city founded by the Phoenicians was ruled by Romans of one kind or another (Byzantines) until destroyed in 580 AD. The ruins are a magical place and exploring them in the beautiful afternoon light was just the thing we needed to get us back on track. Some of the public buildings still have bits of ancient mosaics decorating them. All can be explored freely and there was almost nobody there. Just an amazing spot.

An overview over Anemurium

An overview over Anemurium

With our spirits soaring, we were ready to tackle the road once more to reach the next campground along the coast. Unfortunately, this one was another 150 km away. Until now, we travelled pretty quickly on the brand new 2 lane coastal highway, with its many new tunnels. The next bit would go through the national park and while supremely beautiful, the more careful routing of the new road meant that it was not done yet. Any other day, this would be perfect for us. A quiet one lane highway, hugging the coastline as close at it can with hundreds of turns along the way.

From Anemurium, it was another 100km to the next camp ground

From Anemurium, it was another 100km to the next camp ground

We made the best of it, grooved along towards the setting sun and enjoyed ourselves. We had one more heart-warming encounter with two Kurdish guys at our last fuel stop and made it to the outskirts of Alanya sometime after 6 pm. The “campground” turned out to be a rather odd thing. Mainly a restaurant, they directed us to a tiny patch of grass within 5m of the diners sitting at the edge of the beach. We did not care much, though, got our cooker out and keeled right over after dinner was had. Earplugs helped a lot to drown out the sound of jolly diners and surprisingly loud peacocks.