On Tuesday, July 27th, we headed south to Antalya on the Turkish Mediterranean Coast. The drive took 6 hours, and there was not one uninteresting area. We started out in the mountains surrounding Bursa, where we live, Uladag, or Mt. Olympus, first passing through the town of Inegol, famous for furniture making and kofte, the Turkish meatball. The Inegol kofte is just one of several different "flavors" of meatballs from different towns around Turkey. There must have been 100 furniture store fronts where you can peruse the furniture they make, then custom order. One day we will visit there and see what it is all about. Progressing on, we come to Kutaya. Kutaya is most famous for its porcelain, especially blue. The mountains in that area contain the special clay necessary to make this porcelain. Again, shop after shop, with anything from something so simple to entire dinner sets, to intricate vases. It is also known for carpets, has a hilltop fortress Roman Ruins and thermal springs. Another town worth it's own visit. Coming down the mountains the the valley between those mountains and the Taurus Mountains, which run all the way to the Med, you come into farm land, mostly wheat. The Turks call it desert, but it was just brown with ripe wheat, which was being harvested. This is where we saw our first herd, if you will, of cattle. Mostly we have only seen one or two as milk cows, but theses were a mix match of different breeds, beef and dairy. Coming out of the valley and the beginning of the mountains you reach Isparta, named for Sparta in Greece. Isparta is "the Tyler, Texas" of Turkey, or their Rose Town. Mostly what you saw were greenhouses, but we really did not go through a large portion of the town. There were rose gardens down the median of the highway. From Isparta you begin to climb and follow a water source, the Isparta River, which fed into the Karacaoren Dam. This lake/dam is used for trout farming. It was a beautiful setting in the pine trees and tall mountains. We stopped here at a restaurant (Geoff had been taken to previously) for a fresh trout lunch. It was nice to eat fresh trout and not have to clean the fish or clean the dishes. The exit of the lake was the Asku River, which flows to the Mediterranean just slightly to the west of Antalya. We continued up and over the mountains, dropping right into Antalya and views of the beautiful Mediterranean. The locals tell us if you liked the Med, you will love the Aegean Coast; it is more beautiful. We will reserve our judgment of that until such time as we visit there. For right now, the Mediterranean was gorgeous.
Antalya is Turkeys premier resort area, with swimming in the Med and skiing in the Mountains. It is a major vegetable growing area and the reason we were there. Geoff's vegetable research station is there. Veges are grown outside for a good portion of the year, but there is a huge greenhouse industry as well. There are greenhouses as far as the eye can see. On our drive there and back, we saw fields, orchards, vines, of oranges, peaches, apples, pears, figs, wheat, potato, onion, tomato, grapes, pomegranate and opium poppies, for medicinal use. Fields of poppies are guarded by armed guards. We must have passed 100+ roadside stalls outside little farms, selling the produce they grew. Mostly very rustic.
Antalya was founded in 159 BC having been under 4 different rules, but the remaining ruins are mostly all from the Roman Era. We were lucky enough to have a personal guided tour by one of the research team through all the Old Antalya area one afternoon/evening, visited two different waterfalls, and Perge, an old Roman city. Following will be a series of photos in which we will try and do justice to everything we saw and experienced.
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