Woolly says – It was a beautiful bright sunny day with small fluffy clouds dotted around, absolutely perfect for a day of Roman ruins. We had debated long and hard as to where to go, Side is a favourite but we have been there many times and we didn’t want to go too far from Alanya when it came to me,… Syedra, a Roman city perched on top of a mountain that we had visited ten years ago to celebrate my burpday, what could be better than seeing how it had changed and what if anything more had been discovered. As Jo is a wimp when it comes to driving in Turkey we had organised a taxi who would take us and wait while we explored, we climbed in and speed off along the sea road.
Syedra is an ancient city 20 kilometres to the east of Alanya. Excavations were first carried out between 1994 and 1999 which found it to from the 7th century and was in continual use until the 13th century, all that history couldn’t be missed.
We turned onto the small road that led upwards through the banana plantations leading us through one hairpin bend after another, the view below got better and better as we got ever closer to the snowy peaks of the mountains nearby.
Leaving our lovely driver to bask in the sunshine we started our climb upwards, I remembered this and hadn’t been looking forward to it but since our last visit wooden steps had been set into the hillside and although step it was no longer a scramble on hands and knees.
Woolly says – Our first sight was a set of arched caves which might have been for food storage or part of the water system for the city, having taken a peak we climbed onwards. Walls were dotted amongst the trees and bushes were houses might have once stood, the views for the families living there would have been incredible.
As the human paused to get oxygen into her lungs we spied the bathhouse for the first time and I rubbed my paws in glee as I remembered it well, ten years ago it was one of the only Roman bathhouses still to have a roof of any sort in the world.
I arrived at the southeast side of the city and it’s columned street measuring 10 meters wide and 250 meters long, my carer finally caught up and sat down on a handy fallen column to catch her breath. Many centuries ago the north side of the street would have had a wooden roof supported by the now fallen columns to provide shade and a stone pavement on which everyone would have walked and mingled among the many shops that would have been selling their wares.
We wandered along peering into the doorways wondering what might have been for sale. Numerous inscriptions containing information about sports games and competitions in the ancient settlement show that the city was one of the important sports centre in the region, these are now safely living in a number of museums in Turkey. Niches would have held marble busts of the most famous of emperors, Hadrian included, I so wish I could have seen them.
We looked down into the bathhouse and across at the ocean twinkling in the sunlight, it made for a fantastic picture.
Reaching the end of the street we climbed up some stone steps and found ourselves at the Heroon, now empty it would have once been a tomb monument built for the nobles, hero’s and demigods. We stood taking in the view once again.
Mores steps led us to chapel and church were new excavations had been started in 2019, sadly they had stopped again in 2020 and had yet to resume. The Chapel seemed very small and was a later addition being constructed in the 10th century.
We climbed over parts of the walls and debris that was still to be cleared to see hat the church had to offer. Dating back to the 5th century what little remained was much bigger but sadly so little was there it was hard to imagine how it might have looked. Our way was bared so with no other choice we made our way back to the main street and down into the bathhouse area.
The small one had raced on ahead when I heard a loud squeak and raced down the uneven steps thinking he might have fallen, instead I found him bouncing up and down in excitement at his find of a small amount of mosaic tiles, it might not be many but even I agreed it was a splendid find.
Woolly says – The bathhouse was built over two levels with its gymnasium, cold and hot rooms and the main bathing area. We peered into the areas that were now blocked to us to see what was still there, before turning our attention to the main bathing area itself.
Large iron gates blocked our way and even I was too big to squeeze through, water lay inside but not intentionally it was due to the roof having collapsed leaving it open to the elements. It looked so different to our previous visit.
We have attached a link for the blog that we wrote in 2013 so you can see the difference.
Woolly says – It was such a shame but hopefully work will soon begin again to preserve what is left. We found a small pathway that led us towards the front of the bathhouse and stood below admiring it, sadly rubble and signs of danger meant we could go no further so instead we sat on a small pile of stones sipping our water and looking out across the sea enjoying just being there and together in such a fantastic setting.
https://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/Turkey/Mediterranean/Alanya/blog-815018.html