Day 6 [May 13, 2010]

Today we woke up and got on the bus. Our first destination was to a hilly rustic and isolated town known as Assos. We walked up a steep cobblestone street past ramshackle huts and charming elderly Turkish trinket merchants. My mom says that it felt like walking back through time. Eventually, we reached the top which held the delightful ruins of a temple.

            The view of the sparkling sapphire Aegian sea took our breath away. From this vantage point we saw the massive mysterious island of Lesbos, looming in the distance miles away. On our way down we stopped at a café and enjoyed a quick cup of warm apple tea. Aristotle stayed as Assos for several years and taught there.

After driving to a lunch at a roadside restaurant, we visited the fabled and awe-inspiring acropolis of Pergamon. The city, or more appropriately temple complex, is perched on the steep edge of a mountain. The view stretches endlessly, and we could see the very edge of the Aegian coastline 4 kilometers away. We will always remember ‘climbing over the ruins like eager mountain goats’ as our guide Ugur described us. The great thing about Turkey is that you can interact with the ruins. Touch them, climb on them, and imagine yourself living and walking on the same streets as the Ancients.

The theater at Pergamon is the steepest theater in the ancient world. It seems like the Greeks somehow carved out a semiconical theater from a bleak mountainside. I’m sure the angle of elevation more than 45 degrees steep, but it somehow gives you enough space to sit comfortably and view the very small theater platform at the bottom.

We soon left for the city of Izmir, which is a large industrial city (Like Pittsburgh) where we went to my first hotel where I was given a physical metal room key (like what you use to open your mailbox). Time for some sleep!