December 31, 2008
Another ancient city with great views
Getting to Labranda is difficult, and you'll need a rental car, but it's well worth the effort if you have some time to spare.
You have to drive for a while along uphill, along a logging road shared by large trucks barreling down hill. We were warned by locals to be very careful along this road, but we didn't run into any problems ourselves.
Once we got to Labranda, we had an ancient city all to ourselves. Like most tourist sites in Turkey during the off-season, this was completely deserted. There wasn't even anyone manning the "ticket" booth, or if there was, they were fast asleep.
Most of the interesting sites are concentrated near the entrance. Not much more than a few walls and well preserved columns remain, but this is one of the best places to get a feel for the "layout" of an ancient city. You can see the outlines of buildings and the paths and stairways used to navigate between them.
If you keep hiking uphill for 15 minutes there is a "fortress" at the very top of the hill, behind the city, and some city walls. But the trees and plants are really dense here, and you can't really see anything. The paths are also not very well marked here, and we had a bit of adventure trying to find our way back through the overgrowth.
Definitely recommended, especially if you want some remote ruins all to yourself.
You have to drive for a while along uphill, along a logging road shared by large trucks barreling down hill. We were warned by locals to be very careful along this road, but we didn't run into any problems ourselves.
Once we got to Labranda, we had an ancient city all to ourselves. Like most tourist sites in Turkey during the off-season, this was completely deserted. There wasn't even anyone manning the "ticket" booth, or if there was, they were fast asleep.
Most of the interesting sites are concentrated near the entrance. Not much more than a few walls and well preserved columns remain, but this is one of the best places to get a feel for the "layout" of an ancient city. You can see the outlines of buildings and the paths and stairways used to navigate between them.
If you keep hiking uphill for 15 minutes there is a "fortress" at the very top of the hill, behind the city, and some city walls. But the trees and plants are really dense here, and you can't really see anything. The paths are also not very well marked here, and we had a bit of adventure trying to find our way back through the overgrowth.
Definitely recommended, especially if you want some remote ruins all to yourself.
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