between the rock and the cold, cold sea

Henceforth to be known as The Day We Went To Turkey.

We got up early to catch the boat. Good thing we arrived at the dock early, too, because the queue through security and passport control (who does passport control for boats? Departing boats?) was murder.

It's fifty minutes from harbour to harbour, and with the wind from the port quarter and only a light chop to the sea, it was a very pleasant passage. We docked in the shadow of the harbour castle, in the middle of a very large marina filled with sloops. Not mere yachts, mind you: these were two-masted beauties with significant draft. I swear, if I were to stay there for very long, the temptation to commit piracy would be overwhelming.

Bodrun has shops, and mosques. (I'd never seen inside a working mosque before. They look... welcoming.) But mostly it has a castle, which is also the Underwater Archaeology Museum of Turkey. Which means it contains several of my favourite things. Pots!

The castle is another of the massive fortifications originally erected by the Knights of St John of Jerusalem and Rhodes (and later, Malta), like that on Kos harbour, and of roughly the same vintage. There aren't nearly as many bastions as the Palamidi - but it has bastions! And towers! And Hospitaller Knight coats of arms everywhere! And a church turned mosque turned exhibition space for a Roman shipwreck, and the Ulu Burun Bronze Age shipwreck, and suits of medieval armour - chainmail and cuirasses - and a tower hung on the inside with banners and medieval furniture, and there are chickens and peacocks and peahens under the bushes, and long worn steps down to a dungeon chamber which has possibly the worst museum reconstruction I've ever seen - and I've seen some bad ones.

Pictures will arrive eventually.

The pots were good. They have a lot of amphorae. They also have many, many ancient anchors, and Greek tombstones - a long time ago, the name for Bodrun was Hallicarnassos - and statuary. At twenty past one, I was standing beside the coat of arms of a Grand Master of the Hospitaller Knights, dividing my attention between a Classical statue of Dionysos and a Late Antique funeral inscription bearing the name Christophilos, when the muezzin started calling the adhan. The juxtaposition of history and belief in that moment was bizarrely affecting.

I'd never heard the adhan called before. It's like plainchant, a little: sounds half-sung as much as spoken, and it's a beautiful noise. Allah-u Akbar, laa ilaaha illa l-laah. (It's a pleasanter sound than the churchbells that keep waking me up at 0800 when I'm in Athens, at least. I could listen to the nice voice saying pretty religious things all day. Churchbells? Fuck that noise. Someone with a tin ear cast that particular set of bells.)

There was then a lot of sitting in the shade drinking milkshakes and iced coffee, in between peering in boring shops. (Really. McDonalds and Starbucks and Burger King? Where is the imagination? Where is the tasty food?) Because Bodrun is a lovely sheltered south-facing cove in the lee of lots of lovely hills, and gets absolutely no breeze at this time of year. It's bloody hot, and it was hot and still even in Kos this evening.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, we were facing into the wind on our crossing back. Guess what this means? Drenching spray!

...I ended up soaked through. Which was fun at first, and rapidly became rather old. Not to mention threatening to the notebook in my pocket. (Poor notebook will not ever be quite the same again, but most of the writing appears to have survived.)

Dinner: all the tasty things once again. I will miss Greek food when I am home.

Why am I so tired?

Last evening, when I got in and hooked up with the parent, we walked down to the fortress by the harbour. Built by the Hospitaller Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, Rhodes and Malta - back when they were the Hospitaller Knights of St John of Jerusalem and Rhodes, and hadn't yet been chased all the way to Malta - it's a perfectly cromulent example of late medieval/early 16th century military architecture, with an outer defensive wall (with bastions) surrounding an inner killing-ground and a further walled keep. Until the last century, it lay on an island, and accessed the mainland by a short bridge, but the 20th century saw the fortress's small island permanently joined to the headland by the infilling of the channel which had formerly separated it.

Kos Town is very pretty, with a profusion of purple-flowering climbing bushes, knife-edged hills rising in the centre of the island to the south and a promontory of Turkey across the sea to the north.

This morning we arose and breakfasted in the hotel (uck, hotel breakfast), and caught the Tourist Mini Train to the Asklepion. Which is about 15 minutes away at a speed of approximately 30mph, or a couple of hours' walk. It's located among pine trees on the slope of a hill, facing north: it has a view down (between the trees, or above them) to Kos Town and Turkey beyond.

The sanctuary situates itself on three terraces on the slope of a hill, rising to the south. Entry is past the ruins of a bath complex, up steps in the face (offset W. from centre) of the retaining wall of the first terrace, to the courtyard of the first terrace (henceforth First Court). A monumental gateway with columns would have commanded access to this area in antiquity.

NE corner of first court, bath complex. SW. corner of first court, area indentified as Roman latrines. E, N, and W sides, court lined with a stoa, within which probably commercial activity would have taken place. It's also possible that votive offerings were displayed here.

Court is wide and reasonably large. Probably had votive offerings set up around it, in open space. Retaining wall of middle terrace is nice clean ashlar masonry, with arched niches capable of holding life-size (and larger than) statues. E. of steps to middle terrace, which are opposite the propylon, the third niche E. has a fountain basin. W. of steps to middle terrace, three intercommunicating basins contain evidence of water features - possibly cisterns, possibly something to do with latrine.

Middle terrace accessed by steps. Eight paces from top of steps is a built altar, centrally located. E, a peripteral Ionic temple of the Roman period, and S of this, an exedra of ashlar masonry with arched niches as on the lower retaining wall. W of altar, a Doric temple, not peripteral, of the Greek period. S. of this, a building with interior divisions - what appears to be a front corridor, with access from the NE corner; behind this, two intercommunicating rooms with a small chest-height niche in each rear wall, with access to each from the front corridor, and behind this, two adjoining rooms with access from the exterior and no intercommunicating access - identified as the 'abaton'. (I dispute abatons on general principle.) W. of Doric temple, open space.

Up steps in retaining wall of upper terrace. Steps in retaining wall of upper terrace divided in two parts, with an intermediate mini-terrace in between. (More votives here?) Upper terrace: steps face a large temple of the Doric order, much larger than either of the lower temples, which appears to be peripteral, set on a high-ish stylobate. This area of the sanctuary has large areas to each side of the sanctuary with no visible remains other than scattered stone blocks which appear to be from the temenos wall: must query excavation report. Temenos wall appears to be continuous around area of upper terrace, with steps in rear wall and Access Forbidden sign on goat track between pine trees.

The Asklepieion at Kos is home to vast - and I mean vast: at least a score and probably more, I lost count - numbers of kittens and young cats. These congregate in the carpark and by the orange juice cafe before the ticket office, and they are incredibly cute. Also, distracting.

Return to Kos Town by Rattly Mini Train. See hammam by covered market. Lunch at estiatorio by agora. Abandoned by parent in favour of nap. Visit archaeological museum. See many statues, one mosaic. Disappointed by absence of pots on display. See Ottoman-style architecture. Am impressed: evidence for those missing three point five centuries! Even evidence of a mosque, with still-standing minaret. More cats. Cats everywhere. Return to hotel. Argue with parent about money. Check email. Write post. Feel very tired.