Day 8 – June 20 – Canakkale to Izmir
The sights from our 7th floor balcony would go close to being the most beautiful that we have ever seen. We were up very early, packing our bags; it was breakfast at 7am; we dropped our bags on the way to breakfast, and were driving away from the beautiful Canakkale at 8am for what turned out to be a 12 hour day before we made it to our Hotel at Izmir (the old Biblical Smyrna).
We headed for the ancient ruins of Alexandria Troas. We were tracking down through what was known in the biblical world as ‘Asia Minor’. If you look at the Gallipoli Peninsular on a map, and then draw a line due south – the region on the Asia side of the Dardanelles on the western end of modern Turkey was ‘Asia Minor’. This was the region for the early growth of the Church outside of Jerusalem. Places such as Smynra, Galatia, Ephesus, Pergamum – certainly all of the seven churches mentioned in Revelation chapters 2 & 3 were all in the ‘Asia Minor’ area.
After a trip of about an hour we arrived at Alexandria Troas. Only 17k from the original historic city of Troy, Alexandria Troas was named after Alexander the Great and became a significant sea port that Julias Caesar considered transferring the Government there from Rome. Today though it has been completely reclaimed by dense trees and scrub and at first appearance it looked like a natural, undisturbed landscape. The old city was almost completely buried and overgrown. We had the rare privilege of being taken where tourists never go. Inside this site, we discovered some of the very early diggings of what is yet to become a major commitment to unearth the old city.
St Paul visited Alexandria Troas several times, on his 2nd and 3rd missionary journeys. It was here on his 2nd Missionary journey that he received the vision to ‘come to Macedonia’, which took him to Neapolis, Philippi, Thessaloniki and Athens. The photos indicate the grand buildings and thermal baths that have only just begun to be re-discovered.
We then moved on to a site that is also not on the tourist route. The bus wound its way through tiny, age old villages, with tumble-down little houses, small goat pens and chickens running wild, into a remote historic ‘quarry’ south of Alexandria Troas but with vision of the Aegean Sea, to an abandoned site from centuries earlier where the massive granite columns were made. Lying derelict, as if they were the ones that didn’t make the grade, there were several massive granite columns lying like fallen trees in a forest – these columns were 2metres in diameter at the base, and perhaps 1metre at the top, and probably 6-8 metres in length. They weighed an estimated 50,000kg! That’s 50 tonne! Apparently the massive columns for the Vatican were made here, and shipped across to Rome. Just ask yourself – how did they ever manage to move them, without technology of any kind. It was hard enough walking into this site – it seemed impossible that these columns could ever have been moved…but they were!
We travelled through more beautiful old villages, with some breathtaking scenery of the ocean, along very narrow coastal twisting and turning roads with barely enough room for a 40 seater tour bus, and wound our way down to the sea village of Assos. This is also mentioned in the travels of St Paul on his 3rd Missionary journey, where he came back to Alexandria Troas and then walked to Assos. We had a most delightful fish meal, sitting on the water’s edge of a Turkish restaurant. The scene was a work of art, the sun shining off the ocean. It was a long walk down (bus couldn’t come all the way) and a long, hot walk back, but it was all worth it. We held our breath as our driver managed to keep the bus on the narrow, steep road as he climbed his way back out – we were pre-occupied with the magnificent view of the southern Aegean ocean.
It was then a long drive further south to Bergama, which was the ancient city of Biblical Pergamum, mentioned in Revelation Chapter 2. I think if we had thought we had seen everything, we had so much more now to discover about the ingenuity of ancient civilizations to defy logic in managing to build such massive structures in such high places. The current town of Bergama lies at the foot of a massive mountain which is completely without trees. In its day it was described as the most spectacular Hellenistic city of all Asia Minor. The ancient acropolis (of massive proportions which makes the acropolis of Athens look tiny) was build like a crown on top of the mountain that stands out for miles around. Today, we ascended the mountain by cable car! The ancient ruins are well preserved, evidence of numerous temples, the most grandiose being the Temple build for Emperor Trajan, but also that of Athena and Zeus, the ancient ‘gods’. It also boasted the largest library in the known world – we saw the remains, with a massive theatre built into the hillside. We looked down on ‘the devil’s throne’ mentioned in Revelation Chapter 2 – the place of devil worship and satanic sacrifice. Only the photos tells the actual story of the sheer grandeur of this place that was once the illustrious city of Asia. The views over the countryside were beyond superlatives. How did they build such grandeur? How did they get so much stone up the mountain, and how did they manage such planning and precision?
It was now late in the day, approaching 6pm but we had one more site to visit – the ancient ruins of the healing centre of Asklepios. It was virtually another tiny ‘suburb’ rather than just a building where people came for healing. Snakes were worshipped, as was the god of healing Asklepios. The current symbol of the snake twisted around a pole has its origins here. Hippocrates, the ancient Greek philosopher, held to a Greek religious belief which recognized the serpent on a staff as a symbol of medicine. The Sanctuary of Asklepios was at the modern town level, but from where we could look back to the mountain to see the major part of the beautiful ruins of the Acropolis and the Temple to Trajan standing out in all its former glory, with the theatre on the mountainside looking like it did over 2,000 years ago.
It was a 90min drive to Izmir to our Hotel. It was very late but there were no complaints at such a long day. How could there be – we had been to places never visited by tourists, and seen things that we will never forget.
We sat down for dinner at 9pm, grateful to be ‘in’. The Hotel is one of the nicest. Turkish hospitality cannot be faulted. I have been blown away by the sheer beauty of the countryside, and the inner beauty of the Turkish people. Tomorrow we visit three more of the Biblical places with rich history – Smyrna (where we are staying), Sardis and Laodicea.
So from our comfortable room at the Double Tree Hotel in what was the ancient town of Smyrna (now Ismir), we send our love. Until tomorrow…
KRA
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