Behramkale and Bozcaada, Turkey

Behramkale: Athena on a HIlltop

Thursday 13 October 2011

“My favourite ruin is the Temple of Athena”, we were told. It was a bit difficult to reach, taking us nearly three hours and three public buses to go around the bay from Ayvalik to Behramkale, but it was worth the effort. Behramkale and Assos are really the same settlement separated by a 1000 m hill. Assos, originally a small fishing village, now predominantly tourist hotels and restaurants, is at the base of the hill on the shore. Behramkale is an old Greek village surrounding the ruins of an Acropolis (fortified hilltop city). Since we were to stay just one night, we chose a simple Pansiyon in Behramkale within a short walk of the ruins.

It was a beautiful sunny day for a change. As soon as we checked into our Pansiyon we set off up the hill, past all the souvenir boots, still hoping for sales despite the distinct lake of tourists. It was past the high season and almost no tours passed this way anymore. The women of the village still sat in groups knitting quite pretty shawls to display at their booths and chatting amongst themselves. A few booths had handmade olive soap which appealed to me. I could carry at least one cake in my bag. One local told us that the tourists from Eastern Europe, new entrants into the market, liked to bring home souvenirs labelled from a recognizable site. There were a few booths catering to that taste. A tea house on the way used bits of columns to make their outdoor tables. It was a nice touch regarless of what the archaeologists would say.

There was one local teen-aged school group and a Swiss family sharing the site with us, but that was all. The Swiss family told us they had been swimming in the ocean at their hotel in Assos and it was still wonderfully warm. What a blissful day. We never felt hurried along and we could wander at will. There is not much left of the famed 6^th C BC Ionic Temple of Athena apart from the base and some columns, but the setting gave us unobstructed views of the hills surrounding the location and the sea over to Lesvos. Most of the temple was destroyed to build houses and cisterns several centuries later as the city grew. The friezes that decorated the temple were carted off to Boston by a later archaeologist. Fragments of sturdy city walls that snaked around the top of the hill and down the sides to protect the fortress city were still in evidence. Ruins of watch towers stood where they always kept guard. Fragments of columns and big buildings blocks were strewn over the hilltop. It was easy to use our imaginations to see what must have been there and to wonder how it was ever built in so desolate an area.

We could see more ruins lower on the hill but a sheer cliff prevented access from the top of the Acropolis. We found an easy way to the ruins. We could follow old village roads right down to a road that led to an abandoned gate to the lower ruins. Cars were prevented from entering but we were not. We found sarcophagus piled on top of each other in the Necropolis (cemetery) area, maps indicating the Agora, market area, ancient temple ruins, including a very early church and a beautiful theatre. We were the only people exploring. We had to dodge cow patties and watch out for a long brown snake that slithered under a bush, but we continued undisturbed. It was a bonus find. These were the type of ruins tourists found 20-30 years ago, before tourism hit Turkey. We relished it. 

Windy Bozcaada Island

Sunday 16 October 2011

The rain started as soon as we got onto the ferry to the Turkish island of Bozcaada. It is a favourite summer resort but this was October and the skies were grey and cold. Our half hour trip to the island brought us to the quaint village of Bozcaada but it didn’t bring better weather. It continued to be very windy, rainy and cold the two and a half days of our visit. Forecasts for the mainland were no better so there didn’t seem a good reason to leave early.

Known as Tenedos before Turkish independence, the island changed hands many times over the centuries. The castle fortress dates from Byzantine times with later Venetian, Genoese, and Ottoman additions. The island was occupied by the French and English during WWI and only became part of the Turkish Republic in 1923, when it was renamed Bozcaada. Prior to 1923 the predominant population was Greek, with the Greek Orthodox church very important in their lives. Of course after the exchange of populations with Greece in 1924, the majority of the people on Bozcaada were Turkish. The local museum had a large section devoted to the Greek citizens.

The island has always been the premiere wine producing region in Turkey, some of which we sampled during our visit. Fishing is still an important industry but tourism has taken over as the number one industry. The village has more hotels, pensions, restaurants and cafes per capita than any other place we have visited in Turkey.

Mid-September, after children have returned to school and traditional vacations have ended, means that many of the businesses are closed until the following spring. Even those restaurants that remain open during the off season are only open on Wednesdays and weekends. We arrived in the town of Bozcaada to see locals queing behind a truck. We had no idea what was happening and we were intent on finding our recommended pension and then a place to eat. We located a two-room pension with the correct name, Ergin Pansiyon, the doors were open, (this is not a high crime district), the rooms were empty and ready for travellers, but no one was around. We experienced language difficulties talking to neighbouring businesses, trying to locate the owners. We tried to finding an alternate pension still in operation at a reasonable price. I knocked on the doors of several, getting no answer or being told they were not open.

We returned to the center of town where several locals bekoned us over to the truck and offered us a take-out meal of rice pilaf, yogurt and a condiment. We were hungry so we ate, wondering if this was a festival event. No, a young man explained that his grandfather had died two years ago and every year on the anniversary of his death his family come with lunch for the townspeople. That is when we noticed that the meal was being offered beside the town mosque, to which the grandfather belonged. Muslims have a history of providing a soup kitchen for the needy, and at that moment we were happy to be needy.

Refreshed by our lunch we tried again to locate Ergin pension. This time we found out that Ergin had two more houses they operated under the same name, just a few blocks away. We found the owner, a friendly, older lady (probably younger than us) with whom we communicated in sign language. We were shown to a nice, large room with a bath, and that is where we stayed. We had breakfast in the woman’s house next door and when the rain let up and the winds were not too bad, we explored the town, wandering the narrow streets and sampling the tea rooms and restaurants.

We had plans to walk the hills above the village but that will have to wait for another trip earlier in the season. Instead we will return to Istanbul for our last two days in Turkey, hopefully to visit a few spots we missed on our first stay. 

Contingency Planning

Tuesday 18 October 2011

We are becoming experts at making alternate travel plans when the original plans refuse to cooperate. Once we had left Bozcaada and travelled to the hub town of Çanakkale, we had a choice. The options were a six hour bus ride to the bus depot in Istanbul that was 14 km out of town or a 2 ½ hour ride to the ferry port in Bandirma and a two hour boat ride to the Yenikapi port in Istanbul, a mere 2 km from our hotel. All our advice had been to take the ferry.

The timing was right. The wind had dropped a knot or two over Bozcaada, we caught the 11 AM ferry to the mainland and a minibus was waiting at the ferry ready to take us for the one hour trip to Çanakkale. The next bus to Bandirma was not until 2:30 PM but we had lots of time to make the 6:30 PM ferry to Istanbul. Of course each of the bus rides took a little longer than advertised but we were still in Bandirma in time to get a shuttle bus from the out of town bus station (why do they put them so far out of town?) to the ferry. All was well except there was no ferry! We never suspected that big ferries could be cancelled but this one was; we assume because of the windy and rainy weather.

We considered staying overnight but decided to find out if there was a bus that evening to Istanbul. The minibus shuttle to the bus station was just loading and there was a 6:30 PM bus to Istanbul. We just made the connection, along with everyone else who had intended to take the ferry. The poor bus driver had his problems too. He tried, along with several trucks to take a short cut on another ferry closer to Istanbul. No ferries were running. One of the major highways was blocked by police. The driver had to take yet another alternate route. We finally reached the Istanbul bus station at 11:50 PM. At least the taxi ride to our hotel was fast, if more expensive at that late hour, and our room was waiting for us. We were glad to get the trip over with, especially as we learned the ferry situation had not improved very much the next day either.