The
season is over! Poppy is closed – apart
from the 17 rooms of students we have staying for the winter. They are mostly 18-22 years old, students at
the university (Fethiye has some faculties of Mugla University), studying a
range of courses from landscape gardening to international business. They seem incredibly young – though of course
they think they are very grown up – and unbelievably incompetent. They regularly call us to change light bulbs,
work the washing machine and adjust the temperature on the fridge. One of the funniest incidents was when one
girl said the kitchen sink was leaking and
Kaan set off with his monkey wrench and spanner only to find it wasn’t
the sink that was leaking but the jar of pickles her mum had sent her and that
she was storing under the sink!
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| homework in the bar |
It
is a relief that the hotel will be earning some money through the winter after
this year’s sorry season. We didn’t suffer
as much as some businesses but it certainly wasn’t a good year and it will
probably take a few years for things to really improve. I read an article recently suggesting that
now, while we are kicking our heels and thinking how to attract tourists back,
we should take the opportunity to rebrand Turkey – and it echoed what I have
said before. I don’t want people to come
here just because it’s cheap and sunny; I want them to come because it’s an
AMAZING COUNTRY!
So
I thought I would use this blog to show some of the things that make it amazing. Most of you reading are probably Turkey regulars,
but there might be things here that even you didn’t know...
Turkey
is the location of TWO of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world. Actually, when these were first identified by
the Greeks in the second century BC, they were referred to as the seven SIGHTS –
a bit like a tour guide of the best architecture around!
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| The Temple of Artemis (impression) |
The
first in Turkey is the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus – which was actually built
and destroyed several times but at its finest was 450ft long 225 ft wide and contained
127 60ft high marble columns. Amazingly –
who knew that human nature had changed so little - the second temple was
actually destroyed by an arsonist seeking fame; the third temple was destroyed
by the Goths, following which some of the stones were carried over 300 miles to
Istanbul and used in the building of the Hagia Sophia Church!
The
other ‘Wonder’ is the Tomb of Mausolus, King of Caria, built at Halicarnassos (present-day
Bodrum). Almost 150ft high and decorated
with marble friezes, this tomb has given its name to all above-ground burial
chambers – or mausoleums. Apart from the
pyramids, it was the last of the seven to be destroyed – by an earthquake in
the thirteenth century – and parts of it were also reused in the building of
Bodrum Castle (and you thought recycling was a modern idea!)
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| Mausoleum at Halicarnassos |
Sadly,
though you can visit the sites of these two ‘sights’ and find out more about
their history, there is not much left to see.
In fact you can see some of the remains of both structures in the
British Museum in London! But you can
find wonders of history all over Turkey and more is being discovered all the
time...
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| Theatre at Arycanda (near Kas) |
