Cyrenia

This town, a few miles inland on the top of the escarpment, has some incredible views and a divided heritage, also now a lot of gum trees. The hellenistic baths are still there beside the far more elaborate Roman ones. You can see us sitting in the separate hip type baths of the helenistic period.The temple of Zeus was rebuilt by the Romans but is still pretty impressive. They have a strange funerary cult with blank faced statues of Persephone

Tripoli

Fun today in Tripoli, we started by going to the museum which is in the Red Fort at the edge of the old town. with so many Roman cities they had a good collection. Gadaffi's car from the revolutionary days was there with Drusus and Germanicus, neither of whom I can remember seeing giant heads of before. There were excellent mosaics and then we went into the medina. Scattered around amidst more modern buildings were pieces of ancient roman architecture. We finished up at a very pretty mosque.

Libya

Finally modern civilisation or at least true internet access. It has been an amazing tour so far. We started with Cyrenia and once you got over the shock of ruins among the gum trees it was lovely.Very much a Greek town that got taken over by the Romans. You can see them striving to hang onto their Greek roots with bilingual inscriptions but when you see the theatre converted to an amphhitheatre you know who won. Theyy have a small but very fine collection of statues from the site. A large site, they all seem to be, and its hot and dusty but we finished up with dinner at a cave restaurant. The meals tend to all be the same. Libyan soup which ranges from tasty to fiery, how they love chili here, a sort of salad, usually lettuce or cabbage withh tomato, olives and chili, couscous, meat and harissa, a chili sauuce.
Ptolemais was next, its late but has an 80 room governors house and because of Africa dropping by two meters is very much on the beach. Apollonia which our hotel was next to is also half in the sea. Its mostly Byzantine stuff that survives there.
The hotel we are in in Tripoli has computors in the rooms. Just as well at this speed a simple message will take all night.

Spıce Market and Rustem Pasha Mosque

Today was the Spıce Market and a small but very hard to locate mosque, the Rustem Pasha. It has beautıful tıles and ıs set hıgh above the street. I have also ıncluded a shot from the Topkapı palace just because the roses were so cheerful. Roses clearly do well here and are planted all around.

Seeıng the Hıttıte versıon of the Treaty of Kadesh ın the Orıent Museum was the hıghlıght there. The Mosaıc Museum, whıch ıs really just one passageway of the old Byzantıum Palace was quıte ıncredıble, the qualıty of the ımages ıs really outstandıng. Around the great monuments are scattered really lovely tradıtıonal wooden houses, mostly beautıfully kept.

Sultanemet

We have been mostly around the Sultanemet area, Blue Mosque, Topkapı Palace and Archaeologıcal Museum. Also the multıtude of lıttle shops that abound. The fırst two were very crowded but the Museum was very quıet. It has an amazıng collectıon of sarcophagı and a large sectıon on Troy whıch I thınk I wıll revısıt tomorrow as on the fırst go my braın was full. Most of the palace you can`t take pıctures ın whıch ıs a shame as the treasures are purely mındbogglıngly ott.

Shoppıng

Frustrated ın our attemps to see the sulemanıye mosque we retreated to the bazaar for some hours of hagglıng therapy. It does get old very quıckly tho and I`m so pleased ıts not a local feature for us. Took some tıme to get onto these sıtes as had to work out the keyboard. The Turkısh ı is not standard and sınce my logons tend to fearure i ıt took some tıme. We went down to the statıon where the Orıent Express came ın and the waterfront whıch ıs frantıcally busy.

Always scaffoldıng

Istanbul

Arrıves safely after the usual gruellıng 24 hour trıp, I recover more slowly each tıme I thınk. It was a joy beıng drıven ınto the cıty along the coast wıth the ancıent sea walls alongsıde. Our hotel ıs close to most that we want to see and the fırst thıng was of course Hagıa Sophıa. Place ıs crawlıng wıth tourısts but ıt was all good humoured and the crowds cannot detract from the total awesomeness of the buıldıng

New Camera testing

Beam me up Scotty

Always too much to do before getting away, makes you long for either an easier life or a way of hasty exit.

Having over a year to plan this next trip has caused a certain degree of elaboration. It is still three months away, time can go slowly. BC Archaeology is providing the central three weeks of Libya and Tunisia, Roman North Africa is the tour label. Robyn, a friend from uni who I travelled to Rome with, could also make it although she does have to get back before I do. The tour is one week of the school hols and two weeks after. She suggested, its all her fault naturally, that we make good use of the first week and after multo consultations we settled on Istanbul. Malta was on the cards but vagaries of airtravel timetables would have given us just 4 days there. Not quite enough. As it is we will have 6 nights in Constantinopal. There is a mass of stuff to see but I think we can get a good coverage in that time without killing ourselves before the tour. After we finish in Tunisia the tour returns to Australia from Rome which made it easy to extend and stay on for a bit. I will miss three weeks of school but as YR 12 will have finished that does not cause too much of a problem. I probably would not have considered the last week if I had known I would pick up the job at Marist but they were a bit desperate to find someone to fit in with their timetable and accepted me despite the missing three weeks.

All things bright and beautiful

Normally this blog is for travelling but life's journey sometimes gets a mention. Sunday 11th April 15.58 I became a grandmother which seems to deserve a note. Felix Raymond Mansfield Stone welcome to the world with all its wonders and woes.

The Tour

Looking back on the trip I think Petra and Krak get the prize for being even more stupendous than imagined, Ugarit for being more interesting and Saladin's tomb for being unexpectedly moving. The real bonus though was the quality of the group I was with. I have never travelled with such a friendly, intelligent, amusing and interesting bunch, it was a very great pleasure.

Last visit to the BM

Islamic, Anglo-Saxon and before both

Back in London

Quite a contrast to Syria