Pergamon Burning !!!
That is what I witnesses today. Besides it would make for a great song title, right ? (Ok, just as much as any historical/mystical place burning).
But lets start from the beginning. After a relaxing bedbug-free night and a huge watermelon breakfast, I ventured into the town of Soma to get a mobile connection problem solved - somewhen yesterday night my mobile went offline. It looks like my mobile somehow got blocked by the operators. People at the Turkcell shop were extremely nice and helpful, thank you guys! Now my mobile is officially registered to my name so hopefully from tomorrow I should be online again. Afterwards Fatih from the Turkcell shop even guided me to the post office.
Once I got started the ride was pretty easy - I just had to follow a wide river valley, so there were no huge up and downs. The road gave me an introduction into the tomato-and-pepper-processing industry. First fields of the same, later trucks full of it and finally some small factories putting out canned vegetables. After the short ride I arrived in Bergama, known as Pergamon some millenia ago. Yes, this is the place where the Pergamon Altar in Berlin was dug out. Even without the altar the acropolis of Pergamon is still supposedly very interesting, so I tried to visit it. I went for the easy way up, using the ropeway together with a bunch of chinese tourists. However we were not allowed onto the mountain top, because a) it was too late and b) the acropolis was burning. Some officials were close to panicing and fire engines were rushing up the steep path to the top. I managed to have a short look from a side entrance but eventually figured that I won't see all of the acropolis today, so I went down again. From the gondola I saw helicopters and an firefighter airplane arriving. I do not know, what was burning there, I basically just saw the huge cloud of smoke, but given the massive measures they took it seemed to have been something bigger.
Fortunately the lowlands had something to offer, too. There are some huge temple ruins - originally built to worship egyptian gods, later used as a byzantine church, now partly a mosque.
Furthermore parchment is not accidentally called Pergament in German - this is the place where it was invented.
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