Day 6 - Bergama

We stay at the Gobi Pension, a nice enough little place. Breakfast is a variety plate of bread, fruit and a boiled egg. Thus armed, we head off to the Acropolis with two New Zealanders that we keep bumping into and we all hike up some backroads, and sneakily push through a hole in the chain link fence to avoid a few km walking up the road. We're greeted with many fallen columns, ancient wells, stone walls and arches, but almost no tourists. It feels open and lonely here, the way it probably has been for thousands of years. A small building shelters some extravagant mosaics, and we continue climbing.

Once we reach the top the throngs of tourists appear, having been shuttled up the road by taxi and tour bus. We can see many white tour buses, actually we could see quite a few from below as they park with their rear ends hanging over the cliff edge. The ruins at the top are magnificent - huge white marble columns supporting intricate workings on the top pieces. We walk around the top, poking our heads into a few holes and then pick our way down through the rough road and trails.

I can't help feel a bit of smug satisfaction that I have visited the Acropolis the way it was meant to be done, one foot after another up stone steps. I always wonder if the builders would be proud that their achievements still stood, so many thousands of years since they were built, or if they would be sad that the true beauty has been lost to centuries of earthquakes, wind, rain, fire, war and human looting; probably both.

The climb and the sun has worn us out, so we both take a break inside. Later, right before sunset we walked up to the Asclepion, but the sun set before we got there so we just enjoyed the view and head back to the hotel.