Myra Tombs - St Nicholas’ Church - Side (seh - Day)

Myra Tombs

Our travels began in the heat of another south Turkish coast day. I was soaking wet from sweat before I even got on the bike at 9:00 am in the morning. 

Today we would close the loop on a chapter of folklore and history.

Back in 2006 when we travelled between Bari and Dubrovnik we visited St Nicholas’s church in Bari where he is buried. But this wasn’t really his home church, it was where his bones were buried after they were removed from Demre (Myra) during the Crusader wars (Knights of the Templar) and brought to Bari for fear that the Muslims would denigrate them. And St Nicholas wasn’t born in Demre, he was born down the road in Patara, but whose counting. Also on the way to Demre we stop and pay our respects to tombs just at the side of the road. And since today is my birthday I'm getting closer to needing one of these.

Look over my shoulder to see tombs

The church here was restored in the late 1800’s by King Nicholas of Russia and while we were there must have been 4-5 busloads of Russian tourists go thru the place.

St Nicholas

St Nicholas Church Altar

Fortunately the restoration work included a well thought out over-roof that helps shelter the ruins from direct sun and has saved many original frescos inside the remains of the church. Not sure if the tomb that is seen broken open is the one that had St Nicholas’ remains removed to Bari, but it was neat to see where they were from and where they have gone to.

St Nicholas Tomb broken open

Here's the biography of St. Nicholas. https://www.biography.com/religious-figure/saint-nicholas

Incredible detail in Myra Tombs

This town is also the location of the Myra tombs dating from the 5th century BC and called “house tombs” for they were built in house like settings by the Lycians. On the way, though there are more Tombs just off to the side of the road in many different places. 

Beaches everywhere

As well, you can see as we hit the coast again we come across small private beach after beach along the coast. As it was the weekend there were many people out at them.









And along the way is Mt Olympos, the original that has the eternal flame. The one in Greece doesn't.

Mt Olympos and the eternal Flame

Party boat and Beach super hot
  +42C @ 11:00 am

If you doubt what I have said about the heat just look at the sky in the photos of the party boat. You can just see how searing hot the sky is at that time, and that was before noon.

Entrance to Side

We finally arrived in Side, pronounced (se - Day), which means pomegranate in Turkish. As I was driving into the old town I was stunned to drive thru an amazing set of ruins and a stone wall that was partially opened to let us through.

Side was settled by the Greeks at first and there is the standard Temple of Apollo and Athena, ho-hum, it’s Sunday, look over there, another temple of Apollo. 

Apollo

Oh yes, and another remarkable theatre you can only see from the elevated seat of the motorcycle. It seated 15000 people. The town beach was busy in the searing heat and all you want to do is drink a beer and sit in your air conditioned room, it is that hot. We ate supper in front of the ruins of a huge gate to the city. This place is popular with German tourists for some reason. We are now re-thinking our route in light of the blistering heat and trying to choose a cooler route up in the mountains.

Battery suffers heart attack

Athena

It was so hot, we finally cooked the 5 yr old battery on the motorcycle. We were fortunate it happened after the battery cooled down from yesterday’s ride. Easily 47C air temp but another 6-8 C hotter on the pavement and the heat coming off the radiator. And the owner of the hotel, his uncle is the owner of the Suzuki shop in  Manganvet 5 kms away. A phone call and a guy was there on a scooter in 10 mins. ( I had diagnosed what was wrong already), took the battery away, tried to re-charge it, then came back with a replacement. Sandra and I just sat and had an extra long breakfast coffee while this took place and I paid for a new battery, not much different in price to what I’d have paid at home, and away we went. Talk about luck! The mechanic said that batteries only last 3 yrs in Turkey because of the heat. 


The ride from Side to Konya crossed a couple of high mountain passes (1838 Mtrs) was one of them. Very pretty scenery that could be compared to our Cascades but higher. As soon as you get back into this area heading toward Konya you are off the tourist trail and English is no longer an option. Back to hand gestures for things.

Road construction was rampant on this stretch as well and we came away from a 10 km gravel ride looking like we rolled in flour with the bike. The next morning in Aksaray, the guy at the service station started washing the bike while filling it with gas.

We finally stopped for the night in Aksaray, a medium size farming town of 89,000 people just about 30 kms. Away from Mt Hasan a currently dormant volcano. We stayed at a 4 star hotel for 55E with breakfast. This place was quite large and the café food was excellent where we had lambs shanks, rice and a tomato salad for supper. Because of the location, no alcohol can be served and this community is very conservative, even to the point of some services being delivered by horse and cart.