Ruth and the sunset at the island of Dhiffushi, Maldives.
Where are Kevin and Ruth now? Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.

Where are Kevin and Ruth going next? Kuwait City, Kuwait on March 31st.

Thursday, November 12, 2020

Travel day... and the Nysa ruins, and a look at our new accommodations!

Wednesday was a travel day as we drove from Denizli to Güzelçamlı. I had looked at the route ahead of time, and it didn't look very exciting. Mostly four lane highway that went through some larger towns. It was not a limited access highway, so when it went through towns you had traffic and traffic lights to deal with. 

So I had found a stopping point around half way where there was supposed to be an interesting looking 2,000 year old Roman bridge. I didn't do any further research, and just dropped a pin on my mapping program.

We said goodbye to our host and thanked him for a great stay. There was too much to see around Denizli and one week was not long enough!

We were on the road just after 10:00am. It probably took us half an hour to get totally out of the city, and then we were in farmland.

Farmland.

Scenery along the way.

Bringing the cabbage to market.

More farmland.
Lots of the various fruits and vegetables being grown in this area.

Not really the most exciting drive, but we always enjoy just being on the road. 

At the town of Sultanhisar, we turned north to do the short detour up to see that Roman bridge. 

As I said earlier, I hadn't done any research at the time... I just figured this would be a good place to stop and stretch our legs and have a bite to eat.

It turns out that the Nysa bridge is only a small part of the Ancient city of Nysa... another fantastic ruins site. Now I'm sure that some of you are getting tired of looking at this stuff, but we're not! Especially a site like this one... quite a bit different than anything we've seen yet.

We paid the 10 lira ($1.67 CAD, $1.30 USD) per person entry fee. Other than the workers, we were the only tourists there at the time.

Nysa was occupied from about 200 BC until about 1400 AD.

It was built around a fast flowing river gorge, and at one point it had three bridges crossing the gorge, and a big stadium built on top of the gorge itself. Very little of the original state is left today due to earthquakes and flooding hundreds of years ago. But it's enough to be able to paint a picture in your mind of what it was like in its heyday.

This section of the largest bridge is still in pretty good shape.

But the part where it used to cross the gorge is gone.

You can barely make out the rows of seating at the stadium.

The archeological work here is fairly recent. Other than some early work in 1905-1906, most of what you see now has taken place since 1995, and is ongoing today. The vast majority of the site is in its natural state, but you really can't see too much because most of the city is buried beneath an olive tree plantation!

The main street was buried under 3 to 8 feet of dirt!

You can get a better idea from this photo.
The street continues where they have stopped digging.



Imagine how much they haven't found yet.

Main street looking towards the gorge.

There has not been much birdlife worth taking photos of.

The baths are still in their natural state of ruins.


This area has not been excavated.

Here is what lays beneath the dirt.





So much to explore. And as I said, we were the only ones there other than some workers doing some rebuilding at the theater. We eventually saw a total of five other visitors during the entire two hours we spent there.

This photo gives another good show of how much is buried beneath the olive trees.

The council hall.

Another street.

Looking the opposite way.

What is buried 8 feet below ground level!

Notice the clay piping!

The modern day main road that goes through the property actually goes over the 2,000 year old bridge. The part that the water flows through looks like a tunnel, but a tunnel is dug through something, so this is technically a bridge.

We drove over this 2,000year old bridge yesterday.

We also walked through the tunnel.

The theater is undergoing some major restoration.

Parts of the bridge.

You can remains of the stadium seating here.


The library 






What happened to the rest of the wall?

An overview of the main part of the site.

What a great stop that turned out to be!

But we still had some driving to do, and it was already after 1:30pm.

Back on the road, we took a detour on some back roads to avoid the city of Aydin. There is also a toll bypass around the city, but we would rather avoid the four lane highways whenever possible.

Most of this area was cotton farming.


Picking cotton by hand.
We did see some machines at work in the bigger fields, but they seemed to leave a lot behind.
Not that we know anything about cotton farming!

We stopped at a big 5M Migros big box grocery store outside the town of Söke. But we've found that although these stores are bigger, they don't really have much better selection of products than the smaller stores do.

We arrived at our Airbnb rental in Güzelçamlı just before 5:00pm... a bit of a long travel day for us, and we were ready for a cold beverage on the patio! Our hosts seem very nice, and they live in the building above us, having turned the first floor into a private apartment.

Yesterday's drive, 210 kms (130 miles).

Here's a look at our accommodations for the next week...


Living room.

Bedroom.

Bathroom.

Kitchen.
Big table for only two guests!

Patio.

We have a bit of a view.

And our own dog.
He lives here, but he's outside all the time so he comes to say hi whenever we are outside.
He's a very happy boy! We don't know what his name is yet.

We are headed down to see the sea. It's about a 3 km (1.8 mile) walk each way.

We are transitioning our social media from Facebook to MeWe. You can find us at https://mewe.com/p/travelwithkevinandruth

And don't forget to check out the deals at www.campingandrvgeardeals.com

25 comments:

  1. Who pays for all the excavating and renovating?

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    1. I got this from a quick search on the internet regarding Turkey digging; A protocol enabling the extension of 20 archeological excavations’ time-span to 12 months has been signed between Turkey’s Atatürk Supreme Council of Culture Language and History, Turkish Historical Society and General Directorate of Cultural Heritage and Museums.

      “In the first stage, we have decided to support 12-month of excavations starting in 20 excavation sites with a condition that they present us an accurate program and employ as many archaeologists and art historians as we demand,” Culture and Tourism Minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy has said.- here is the link https://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/archeological-excavations-in-turkey-to-continue-all-year-long-141699

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    2. Thanks for that link Karyn-Lee! Also some of the universities help out and if it is a UNESCO site then they get a certain amount of funding from UNESCO and of course some of the monies they get from entrance fees and public donations. I am sure there are other methods of funding coming in to excavate/research the different ruins sites throughout Turkey as well.

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  2. Confused, the map shows u drove inland... And u say u are walking to the sea?.?? Those are great ruins... To still b buried! Seems unreal, but how exciting to discover...

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    1. You are looking at the map from the wrong direction. We went from Denizli (inland) to Güzelçamlı by the coast.

      Yes, those ruins were really neat to see as so much is still so undiscovered there. We would love to come back and see what the site would look like in say 10 or 15 years from now. :-)

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  3. Replies
    1. The ruins truly are fascinating! It would have been so neat to have had a peek at what it looked like back in it's day. :-)

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  4. Great ruins. No trip is complete without a dog at the end :)

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    1. We love having a dog around, especially one that is so quiet and friendly. :-)

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  5. Oh, the history. I love history. Thank you for taking this trip. Have you read The Walking Drum, by Louis L'amour? I think it takes place in this part of the world. It's also full of history. Love your pictures.

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    1. Neither one of us enjoyed history in school, we both found it pretty boring but when we are right there in a spot like this, history becomes so interesting and so amazing.

      No, we have not heard of that book, I will add it to my book list and hopefully we will get a chance to read it one day. Thank you for the suggestion.

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  6. Wow, great set of mostly untouched ruins. I have to say Epheses was impressive but overrun with tourists and hawkers, some of these other ruins you've seen are equally impressive. Your apartment looks great, even a view and a dog!

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    1. This ruins site was definitely an off the beaten path place and we really loved it and the fact that they are still working on the excavation there. So interesting to see how far down some of those ruins really are buried. We are looking forward to visiting Ephesus and are very curious to see how busy it will be considering that there is a lack of foreign tourists around compared to normal times.

      We are enjoying our lovely apartment and it is nice to have a quiet and friendly dog around that is so happy to greet us and loves the affection that we give him.

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  7. Makes you wonder where all the 6-8 feet of dirt came from to bury the ruins.

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    1. Seeing that the ruins are about 2,000 years old I would expect that some of the dirt is debris from earthquakes and the other is just from decomposition of dead growth over the many, many years, also rivers periodically flooded adding silt to the area and of course in dry times the wind would blow in more dirt so eventually over time the ruins would just slowly get buried.

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  8. Love the pictures of the ruins - you can never see too many ancient ruins!!

    Chuck Stone, Kalispell, Montana

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    1. We are happy that you are enjoying our blog and pictures of the ruins. There will definitely be more to come yet. :-)

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  9. It is amazing how there is history buried all over the world.
    Be Safe and Enjoy the new area.

    It's about time.

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    1. It sure is and we have seen some of these amazing ruins in many different countries now. Looking forward to more. :-)

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  10. Love your B &B very spacious. Beautiful pictures of the ruins very interesting. Stay safe. Glad your not in Canada with all this crazy snow!

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    1. We are also enjoying our Airbnb, it is suiting our needs just fine.

      We are glad not to be in Canada at the moment either, especially with all the snow you guys out in the prairies received the other day!

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  11. I’ll never get tired of reading and looking at these pictures! It’s like taking a history lesson thanks to you! Btw, interesting picture of that black bird. Hopefully there will be more bird and animal pictures later in your exploration. Thanks again and safe travels.

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    1. Thank you as always Lynnette. We are so happy that you are enjoying our posts and pictures.

      I found out that the pretty little bird is a Black Redstart. I hope that we will see more birds and animals on this trip but so far they seem to be few and far between.

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  12. That is an interesting staircase in the living room photo. The first couple of step look normal then the rest look like they go almost straight up. Where does the staircase lead to?

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    1. The stairs actually go around in a bend up to the second floor which is the home of our host. There is a door at the top of the stairs that blocks off the access down to our apartment.

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