After leaving Bcharre in Lebanon. we headed back to Tripoli then took the only transport option available to Lattakia in Syria – a service taxi with a couple of local chaps. The border crossing out of Lebanon was straightforward and easy but we were the only westerners crossing at the time and our passports were examined closely, but more out of curiosity than anything else. It was a tiny border crossing with mainly local folk passing through and it was nice to have the two border posts so close together, a matter of a few hundred meters rather than the 3km between Jordan and Israel for eg.
Just before the border crossing there was a town by the sea that had been completely bombed out. A mass of tangled ugly twisted concrete was all that was left. We were unable to find out what it was or why it was devastated as no-one around spoke English (and obviously our Arabic is minimal).
We stayed the night in Lattakia which was an OK place but nothing of particular note to see although we highly recommend checking out some of the fantastic chocolate shops around. The one we went to had some great stuff on offer. Dates ½ dipped in chocolate and stuffed with almonds or walnuts; whole apricots ½ dipped in chocolate and stuffed with nuts; balls of orange pulp dipped in chocolate with almonds on top and many many others.
You can see these in the photo above on the middle right. They’re moulds of carrot pulp studded with whole pistachios and ½ walnuts. It looked a bit like coarse quince or apricot paste and I got a surprise when I tasted it. They looked pretty and very edible but not for me thanks.
Early the next morning we caught a bus from Lattakia to Antakya in Turkey and had an eight hour wait there before hopping on an overnight bus to Antalya on the coast. We spent the time looking round and had a few locals just bowl on up wanting to practice their English. Some were very forward and caught us by surprise, moving in quickly and closely, saying hello, asking us our names, how we were, where we were from. We visited the Antakya Archaeological Museum which is famous for its collection of mosaics. If you like that sort of thing, it is well worth a look as they had rooms and rooms full of these huge mosaics.
This is my favourite mosaic of all I’ve seen even though it was largely ruined and somewhat stupidly, I didn’t take a photo of the whole thing so its difficult now to show the size of it and enable you imagine how it must have looked when it was complete. The first one I’ve seen with fish – there was a dolphin, eel, lobster, grouper, squid and many others. It was huge - about 4m high and 3m wide and was called “Mosaic of the calendar with Oceanus and Thetis” and dated from 2nd century AD. I stood for a long long time looking at this.
This isn’t a very good photo but shows the fat-tailed sheep I mentioned in another posting. Others have been difficult to photograph as they’re usually far away grazing but these ones were standing outside where we were catching a bus, sheltering behind a rubbish bin (it was about to pelt it down with rain) and you can see the massive amount of fat that they carry around their tails. It all wobbles about from side to side when they walk – looks very strange and quite disgusting on the carcass once slaughtered
The bus journey from Antakya to Antalya took 15 hours and was the longest bus trip we’ve done yet and I’m not that keen on doing anything longer unless absolutely necessary. It took us 17 ½ hours in total to get to Olympos, a very chilled out spot on the coast about two hours from Antalya. The bus trip was eventful in itself and I was woken at around 0300 by this massive bang and huge shudder. It turned out that we’d been hit by another bus on roads not designed for these huge buses and it made sense why the trip took that long. Narrow roads, no shoulder, hairpin bends and sleepy drivers are not good combinations.
We’re looking forward to chilling out for a few days in Olympos with its lovely beach and sprawling wild ruins.
Just before the border crossing there was a town by the sea that had been completely bombed out. A mass of tangled ugly twisted concrete was all that was left. We were unable to find out what it was or why it was devastated as no-one around spoke English (and obviously our Arabic is minimal).
We stayed the night in Lattakia which was an OK place but nothing of particular note to see although we highly recommend checking out some of the fantastic chocolate shops around. The one we went to had some great stuff on offer. Dates ½ dipped in chocolate and stuffed with almonds or walnuts; whole apricots ½ dipped in chocolate and stuffed with nuts; balls of orange pulp dipped in chocolate with almonds on top and many many others.
You can see these in the photo above on the middle right. They’re moulds of carrot pulp studded with whole pistachios and ½ walnuts. It looked a bit like coarse quince or apricot paste and I got a surprise when I tasted it. They looked pretty and very edible but not for me thanks.
Early the next morning we caught a bus from Lattakia to Antakya in Turkey and had an eight hour wait there before hopping on an overnight bus to Antalya on the coast. We spent the time looking round and had a few locals just bowl on up wanting to practice their English. Some were very forward and caught us by surprise, moving in quickly and closely, saying hello, asking us our names, how we were, where we were from. We visited the Antakya Archaeological Museum which is famous for its collection of mosaics. If you like that sort of thing, it is well worth a look as they had rooms and rooms full of these huge mosaics.
This is my favourite mosaic of all I’ve seen even though it was largely ruined and somewhat stupidly, I didn’t take a photo of the whole thing so its difficult now to show the size of it and enable you imagine how it must have looked when it was complete. The first one I’ve seen with fish – there was a dolphin, eel, lobster, grouper, squid and many others. It was huge - about 4m high and 3m wide and was called “Mosaic of the calendar with Oceanus and Thetis” and dated from 2nd century AD. I stood for a long long time looking at this.
This isn’t a very good photo but shows the fat-tailed sheep I mentioned in another posting. Others have been difficult to photograph as they’re usually far away grazing but these ones were standing outside where we were catching a bus, sheltering behind a rubbish bin (it was about to pelt it down with rain) and you can see the massive amount of fat that they carry around their tails. It all wobbles about from side to side when they walk – looks very strange and quite disgusting on the carcass once slaughtered
The bus journey from Antakya to Antalya took 15 hours and was the longest bus trip we’ve done yet and I’m not that keen on doing anything longer unless absolutely necessary. It took us 17 ½ hours in total to get to Olympos, a very chilled out spot on the coast about two hours from Antalya. The bus trip was eventful in itself and I was woken at around 0300 by this massive bang and huge shudder. It turned out that we’d been hit by another bus on roads not designed for these huge buses and it made sense why the trip took that long. Narrow roads, no shoulder, hairpin bends and sleepy drivers are not good combinations.
We’re looking forward to chilling out for a few days in Olympos with its lovely beach and sprawling wild ruins.
1 comment:
hi guys,
apart from the 15 hours of bus (that might be a little nightmare...), your trip continues to sound good/funny/interesting... that's great!
and I would have eaten a lot of the stuff from the chocolate shop!! (it looks gnummy indeed)
take care guys,
mic
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