I woke up at 3am quite excited – Nemrut had been on my "to do" list for years and I couldn't believe I was finally going to get to see it.  We piled into the minivan and drove for about an hour and a half along some of the worst roads I've ever traveled along up towards the summit of the mountain.  We arrived about 45 minutes before dawn and walked 20 minutes from the car park to the summit.

A bit of background for those of you who haven't heard about Nemrut.  It's a prominent 2150m mountain in the south of Turkey, and was formerly a part of the pre-Roman Commagene kingdom (we're talking 1st Century BC here folks…).  A pretty humble bloke, King Antiochus I Epiphanes built a huge funeral mound atop Nemrut for himself, and placed statues of himself alongside the great god-kings of the past on two terraces just below the summit.  It was forgotten for centuries and only rediscovered back in 1881.

We arrived at the eastern terrace in time to see the sun rise, and it was a magnificent view over the mountains and valleys below.  The terrace itself is dotted with the 2m-tall heads of the statues seated above the terrace, which have fallen down over the centuries.  There's Apollo, Zeus, a bunch of other gods and of course Antiochus himself.

   
The statues in the pre-dawn light.  The groovy looking guy with the beard is the god Heracles.

   
The same statues at dawn.

On the eastern terrace.  That huge pile of stones behind the statues is the funeral mound built on top of the mountain summit – the king's tomb is under there somewhere!

    
The headless statues.                             Nev and I at dawn.

After sunrise we walked around the 50m-high funeral mound (discernible from the fist-sized stones placed there in a pyramid shape) to the western terrace, almost identical to the eastern terrace.  The statue heads are in better condition however.  Shame they were in the shade tho – next time I'll have to come for sunset!

   
The path to the summit.                        Western terrace in the morning shade.

On the way back to the hotel we stopped off at a few other sights along the way.  First stop was the ruins of Arsameia, the Commagene capital founded in 80 BC.  It sits atop a decent sized hill and has some fantastic stone relief carvings, including one in near perfect condition of King Mithridates I shaking hands with the god Heracles.

   
A perfectly intact stone relief carving with a stone wall of Greek inscriptions.

    It's all Greek to me…

We saw a few other ruins of the Commagene kingdom (Yeni Kale, Karakus Tumulus) but the other highlight of the tour for me was the 2nd Century AD Roman bridge built over the Cendere river.

After freshening up back at the hotel we drove further south, past the massive Ataturk Dam on the Euphrates River, to the pilgrimage town of Sanliurfa.  The town was known as Urfa until 1984, but after nearby Antep renamed themselves Gaziantep (Heroic Antep) they couldn't be outdone and renamed their city Glorious Urfa.  The town definitely has a more Middle Eastern flavour to it than Western or even Central Turkey, most likely due to its close proximity to Syria – bearded men in salvar (the baggy pants), many women in chadors, and lots of pilgrims visiting sights.

At the Golbasi area of the city we saw the ponds filled with "holy" carp and a garden of roses, a symbolic recreation of a legend surrounding Abraham (Ibrahim, who is also considered a great Islamic prophet).

From there we walked through the Dergah complex of religious buildings and mosques.  We also visited the pilgrimage site of Hazreti Ibrahim Halilullah, a cave in which legend has it Abraham was born and hid here for his first seven years.  To finish our visit of Urfa we walked through the massive bazaar.  In a weak attempt to "fit in" better as I'll be traveling around by myself I bought a red and white head scarf (a la Yasser Arafat – sort of) that had me labelled "Paul of Australia" (like "Lawrence of Arabia") by the rest of the tour group.

   
Relaxing by the ponds.                           In the bazaar.

     Delightful tea garden in the bazaar.

At sunset we drove further south from Urfa (to within kilometres of the Syrian border) to the town of Harran, which even gets a mention in the Book of Genesis – now that's old!  It has an interesting history (Abraham lived here around 1900 BC and the first Islamic university was built here in the 8th Century AD) but there's really not that much to see as the Monguls razed the city back in the 14th Century AD when they roared through.  You can still see the outline of the city walls, and the castle ruins still stand.  The traditional mud brick "beehive houses" were also cool to see.

   
The remnants of the Islamic uni.            Exterior of one of the beehive houses.

   
A few shots of the courtyard and the interior of the beehive house.

   
Shy local girls selling their home-made handicrafts.

It was an early start but it wasn't long before we left Cappadocia behind and headed east.  First stop was one of the Seljuk caravanserais at Karatayhan.  While the caravanserai itself wasn't in the best condition (it's waaaaay off the beaten track so it doesn't get the tourist dollars that some of the others do), it was a fantastic reminder that I was actually traveling along the Silk Road!

A good few hours more driving through the absolute middle of nowhere along bumpy and dusty roads brought us to Kahramanmaras, home of Turkey's "world famous" ice cream (says who?).  After sucking in dust for the past couple of hours, we were all looking forward to getting rid of the chalky taste in our mouths, and I have to admit the ice cream was AMAZING!  It's apparently made from goat's milk and had a creamy, buttery taste.  It was extremely rich and we could hardly get through the scoop we'd each been given.  The most interesting thing about the ice cream was its consistency: it's made with so much gooey binder that it can withstand the summer heat, and it was so hard we had to eat it with a knife and fork!

By nightfall we'd made our way to Kahta, a small town near Nemrut Dagi National Park.  We had a swim at the hotel, ate an early dinner, and bedded down for for a few hours sleep as we had a 3am start the next morning.

Nevyn and I polish off a bottle of Turkish wine at the hotel.

On my second day in Goreme, I rented a scooter for the afternoon to go and explore some of the parts of Cappadocia that I didn’t get to see the previous time I was in the region.  I loooove riding scooters and bikes and reckon they’re one of the best ways to get around and see the sights.

First stop was the Zelve Open Air Museum, the less spectacular little brother to the Unesco World Heritage-listed Goreme Open Air Museum.  I say "less spectacular" because it doesn’t have the same beautifully frescoed rock churches that the Goreme museum is famous for.  But for location it can’t be beaten!  The village (it was inhabited until 1952 when it was deemed unsafe to live there any longer because of continuing erosion and collapses) fills different forks at the end of a narrow valley, and is linked by a series of pathways and tunnel passages.

The village ruins at Zelve.

Next stop was the Devrent Valley, or the "Valley of the Fairy Chimneys", where some of the best examples of these geological quirks are located.  I didn’t stay long though as the place is these days overrun with touts, cheap souvenir stalls and hundreds of tourists pouring off their tour buses.

I drove through the town of Urgup (with the Greek influence in its architecture clearly visible in some of the buildings) and drove to Uchisar, a gorgeous little village which also marks the highest point in the region.  The top of the hill is marked by a tall volcanic rock outcrop called Uchisar Kalesi (Castle), which is riddled with tunnels and rooms and visible throughout the region.  I climbed to the top of it around sunset and had some fantastic views across the whole of Cappadocia, including the gigantic Mt Erciyes volcano.

Camel, with Uchisar Kalesi atop the hill.

Back at the pension, when I told Dawn (the owner of the Kose Pansion) that I was leaving the next morning, she asked where I was headed.  I told her that I was off on a three-day tour and then on my way to Iran, and she told me to keep an eye out when I was there for an Englishman riding a penny farthing bicycle around the world!  Apparently he’d passed through Goreme and had just entered Iran a couple of days back.  I’ll be sure to keep an eye out for him – how could you miss someone in Iran on a penny farthing!!  I could think of no more impractical vehicle for circumnavigating the world than one of them, although I guess that’s the idea…  Only an Englishman!