Day-16 | All Good Things Come To An End

Çayağzı to Demre via ruins of Andriake & Myra | 12.3km

The last day. Campsite breakfast, packed and a brief walk past the Çayağzı boatyard and onto a gravel road toward the Andriake ruins that acted as a port city to nearby Myra.

Çayağzı boatyard

Church at Andriake

Bath house

Pulpit of another Andriakian church

Mureks (purple dye) workshop at Andriake

Cistern under the mureks workshop

Andriake port (now silted marshland and great habitat for wild wading birds) with replica boat

Granary. Construction was funded by Hadrian after a visit by hik and his wife. Now a museum but
unfortunately closed when I was there as it was not completed. Security said it is 'to open in May inşallah'...

Heading into Demre I stopped at Çalpan Park for an open buffet lunch (TL15). The place was huge and dead, though a small bus of tourists turned up just before I left

Çalpan Park for  lunch

There's A lot of new residential construction on the way into Demre that is a blot on the landscape. The town centre has lots of small local shops plus all the major banks and supermarket chains. I happened upon a building that still had the sign up for my first employer in Turkey c.1999, the now defunct Sümerbank

Ancient Sümerbank signage

...and just up the road there was celebration of a carpark being built with free kebabs, tea and a grandstand opening (the party probably cost more than the cobbled, small, ground level only carpark!)

We built a small carpark so kebabs all round!

I checked into the family run Kent Pansiyon at the northern end of Demre, dumped my bag and headed out to see the ruins of the Lycian city of Myra, noted as one of the six most important cities in the Lycian Assembly (the others being Xanthos, Patara, Tlos and Olympos) and the capital of Lycia after Xanthos fell into decline. Most of Myra is buried under the modern city of Demre, though the spectacular rock caves and amphitheatre, the largest in Lycia, have been excavated and can be seen along with numerous pieces of stone with carved faces that would have formed  part of the city's infrastructure.

Rock tombs at Myra

Largest amphitheatre in Lycia

Amphitheatre entrance detail

One of the many facial reliefs (fnarr) on site

Panorama of Myra

After deftly avoiding/ignoring the desperate, tourist-hungry salesmen and touts outside Myra I made my way back to the pansiyon for a home cooked meal, lashings of local shop bought Efes Malt and an evening playing backgammon. Shattered, I was in bed by 11pm. I planned to visit the Church of St.Nicholas the next morning before hopping on a bus to Antalya to end the journey.

Efes Malt & backgammon

Saint Nicholas' church was another TL20 to get in - (note to self: next time buy a Muzekart at the outset!) The church is still partially under restoration but many parts are open for viewing. There are numerous heavily damaged Christian frescoes, looted tombs and interesting examples of architectural juxtaposition from centuries of extension and renovation.

St.Nicholas

Saint Nick's relief inside his church

Looted tomb of St.Nicholas - note the paper wishes that
orthodox visitors have thrown onto his empty  tomb

The crucifixion

The three musketeers

Modern day Santa Claus

As well as being the patron saint of sailors in antiquity, St.Nicholas and his myth has formed the basis for the modern day western character of Santa Claus. The story goes that three young girls wanted to marry but did not have a dowry. Under the cover of darkness St.Nicholas left them a gift of small bags of gold. As all doors and windows were locked he climbed onto the roof and dropped the gold bags down the chimney, where it landed on the girls's drying socks.

Someone in Turkey keen to set the story straight... lol

That wraps up the journey. Thanks for reading. I hope it was in some way interesting or informative. Next up: some reflections on the journey, routes, gear choices etc..

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A bonus gift for those who have stuck with my droning blog so far:
a picture of a tourist taking a selfie in front of a stone
gargoyle relief at Myra while 'eating' a banana...