Bergama

Sunday 19^th

After a rapid pack up of our belongings and a quick breakfast in a crowded hotel dining room (which was evidently even more chaotic earlier in the morning, i.e. before 7.15 am, as several tour groups were leaving at the same time) we headed off toward Bergama (about a 3 hour drive). We visited the ancient site of the Acropolis at Pergamum which had many more intact structures than Troy and gave a much clearer sense of what the complex might have looked like in earlier times.

We saw the library ruins (which reputedly used to contain 200,000 parchment scrolls, many of which went to the library in Alexandria as part of Mark Anthony’s wedding gift to Cleopatra in 42 BC),

the Altar of Zeus, (currently moved and living in Berlin),

the Temple of Trajan,

the Theatre and the Upper Agora.

Pergamum is also where Galen (the physician) was born in AD 129 and where he established a famous medical centre, the Asciepieum.

After this we had another three hours driving toward Kusadasi via Izmir where we stay for the next two nights.

The hotel fronts directly on to the Aegean Sea. From here we will drive to Ephesus in the morning and then possibly have a free afternoon to do with as we wish.