quinta-feira, 28 de novembro de 2013

Antalya foi a primeira parada.


One of the most enjoyable hours of our stay in Antalya was to watch the changing light and colour across the bay from our hotel terrace to the mountains in the west. Between 8 and 9 am, light and cloud would alter distance and play tricks with vision.
The Old Christian quarter with its cobbled streets, enclosed gardens and craft shops is bounded by a park on one side and the modern metropolis on the other two. It was once the hub of Antalya, being walled off and hosting the port from which came its commercial riches. Yet even in the 1950s Antalya's population was no more than 50 or 60 thousand, so in fifty years its tourism that has seen it growth to a million inhabitants.
Porta de Adriano
At the end of the fine wooded promenade which runs over a kilometer to the West on a sandstone ridge, Konyaalti Beach circles until the mountains, while to the East Lara Beach continues to the suburbs. But the city to the North is Antalya for the Antlayans. A modern metropolis which runs until it reaches the ringroads and agricultural suburbs. For this is a fertile agricultural plain that provides food for all the coastal belt.
But it is only in Kaleiçi, the Old Quarter that the past lives on. From Hadrian's gate to the Museums of Ottoman life, restoration of many of the fine old buildings continue and the labirinth of streets leave you lost on many a walk. There is a point above the harbour where stalls sell pomegranate juice, here

somebody has scrawled in English "We don't have wi-fi: talk to each other" - unnecessary, I thought in such a magical place.
There is a strong presence of students and young people, especially at night live music from the bars, not cover bands either, but Turkish music albeit contemporary in its sound. The alcohol flows but as in all Turkey we never saw anyone remotely drunk in all our forty days.
Down at the harbour itself the icecream vendors play tricks with the tourists while dozens of boats sell tickets for a round the bay trip, "Thirty liras for one hour, oh! you're Brazilians, in that case let's say twenty!"
Porto de Antalya

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