The Acropolis

The Parthenon has been under restoration since 1975. There has been a lot of controversy about how far they should go in recreating it. It is incredibly huge and no photo can really portray this. The other temples on the site--to Nike and Erectheio-- are dwarfed by it. We went with a tour group to see it. It was very crowded but well worth the visit. We are not fond of Athens as a city. The traffic is awful, the people are stressed and not friendly, there is graffiti everywhere, and we saw demonstrations in the street and armed police everywhere. We felt much safer in Istanbul! Oh, for the Golden Age before motorcycles and tour buses...

Goodbye to Turkey
We have said our sad farewells to the "Likyan Sisterhood" with promises to keep in touch, and are on our separate paths. Marlene and I are now in a fancy hotel in Athens. Suddenly everything is in Euros and expensive! Tomorrow we do the touristy tour of the Parthenon, etc. Will send photos then.

Patara
There was rebellion in the ranks today with many of the ladies voting for time at the beach in Patara instead of another grueling walk to see Roman aqueducts.

We did do a tour of the ancient town of Patara in the morning. This photo is of the Agora or market square. But then we were ready to "beach it"!

Tomorrow Marlene and I say goodbye to Turkey and our newly-made friends: Amy, Ruth, Margie, Angela, Nancy, Brigitta, Barb, Cheryl, Larene, and Shirley. And to our best ever guide, Cenk, who was an angel to put up with this feisty group for seven days on the Lycian Way. Onward to Istanbul and Athens!

This morning we left our hotel in Akbel and the van let us off to walk an old Roman road down to Patara we passed through a little village and down a country road passing orchards of apples and quinces. An old man at one of the houses stopped us and began pulling apples off a tree in his yard to give us. "Ei bayrumlar!" we called to him. "Happy holiday!" We are in the fourth day of the Feast of Eid commemorating the substituting of the ram for the sacrifice of Isaac. It is a five day national holiday here. Lots of eating is going on with families gathering to share food among themselves and with the poor.

Here is the Roman road we walked.

Kekova
Today was a rest day from our trekking. We took an all day boat ride around the Aegean, eating a traditional Turkish meal onboard while sunning and diving into the turquoise sea.

Here is an inlet where we stopped with boats similar to ours. We saw a sunken Lycian city, destroyed by earthquakes and a Roman necropolis in the hills.

Alinca to Akbel

Here we are standing among the ancient temples and tombs of Lycia in a small town named Sydima. Here we had a meal with a local family on their very special holiday known as the Feast of Eid in other countries and Kurban Bayrami in Turkey.

Climb to Alinca.

I knew this would be a hard day: 17km all up. We climbed the side of a mountain today on terrain much like yesterday's. The reward was a fantastic view of the Mediterranean. Many para gliders sailed below us as the Baba Dag region is a world famous spot for this.

Our reward that evening was our van driver Bayrum playing the "saz" and an impromptu Turkish dance with the hotel owner's mother leading the way (after a little persuasion!)