The Lycian Way: Day 4

I'm a little too tired now to write but know if I don't get these thoughts down now then it'll be another week until I have the opportunity and by then my memories of the journey will have already withered and begun to fade. I'm going to limit myself to 500 words. Which is what I say every time I begin to type an entry.

Again the sun shone, we ate a hearty breakfast and set out from the village of Gelemiş to the ruins of Patara, a couple of kilometres down a paved road. Turning right at a majestic old stone gate, we turned left at the first Lycian tombs we'd encountered. With difficulty with found the track through waist high flowering weed which led up through a smattering of houses and until we passed a man who gave us fresh peas. Not since Orlando's last risotto had I eaten them since city Turks seems to prefer theirs pickled in jar. Foul.

The first dog we encountered was vociferous and warned us and our accompanying canines to keep well away from his charge of goats. The next dog we encountered just about made me poop in my already quite filthy shorts. A real live Hound of the Baskervilles, I paled when he showed his fangs and ever so nonchalantly picked up in each hand a stone the size of my head. Which made walking cumbersome. His owner was nonplussed about the entire thing but it wasn't until we were half a mile out away until I unclenched my buttocks. I could still hear his bark as we turned another corner and proceeded down the remains of a poorly kept road that rains had almost completely washed away, thinking abseiling gear might have come in handy.

We delved into the chocolate supply to keep our minds from the growing trickle of sweat running down our backs and passed over into green fields and yet more of the now obligatory but charming olive groves. A retired English couple now living in the district handed us a few pointers before we stopped for lunch. Again we feasted on fresh tomatoes, cucumber, goat's cheese and I hoped that God would provide me with a leaner, more svelte figure upon my return to Istanbul.

Over a few more hills and we began to head down as the track widened and again the sapphire waters of the Mediterranean came into view. The downtrodden looking dog has so far followed us the entire morning's journey - no mean feat considering she was both malnourished and had clearly been abused for most of her short life. I'd forced Damon earlier to gently lob a few stones its way to discourage it, but either this was the greatest adventure she had heretofore known or perhaps, as I would later come to accept, she had simply come to far to make her own was home safely. she was clearly intelligent enough not to want to face the shepherd's vicious canines again on her way back to Gelemiş.

A couple of hours later and our Kalkan, a once sleepy haven now draw card for northern Europeans of a town greeted us on the other side of the bay - the evening's destination was now in sight. and of course, it went began to go iffy.

After mounting and crossing the largest aqueduct I'd yet seen in Turkey, we came to a junction. Then we turned right, and down. Big mistake. After five hundred metres across razor-sharp rocks we had already passed the point of no return but even the dog hadn't been blindly foolish enough to follow.

For the next three and a half hours Damon and I could barely take our minds of the now dangerous terrain to stop and admire the views. One slip would've been a Hellish ticket to hospital, given that some glamorous Turkish rescue team would've been bothered to get the unlucky injured soul out. To be fair, it was foolhardy of us to continue. However, the sun decided to begin its descent and I was saying a large quantity of naughty words under my breath, and maybe some out loud too. I can't remember.

Rocks. In every direction. Rocks that would injure, main and possibly leave gaping wounds that would become infected, septic, and fail to heal. My leg broken two years earlier throbbed. I had a headache. We stopped playing 20 questions because I no longer cared about anyone else who had ever lived or died. It was us against nature with the soundtrack of our now lost dog in the distance.

Except of course, she wasn't lost. After howling for while she simply reappeared, silent. It's moments like this you marvel at the sheer intelligence of animals and wonder why it couldn't actually show us the path outta here rather than just follow us. Surprisingly, I kept my cool. Kalkan disappeared behind a ridge and the shadows passed over our head. Still nothing but rocks.

It was all very stoic, methinks.

Eventually, the combination of a newly bulldozed road, recent building development and a sheer lack of patience brought us to a switchback that climbed back and forth up an incline that would've made an Istanbul taxi driver refuse the fare. I had to stop three times on the way up. Now was probably a good time to give up smoking.

By the time we reached main road into the city our combined remaining energy level wouldn't have had to strength to complete a full English sentence. Beyond exhausted. As we crashed into Kalkan proper we headed downhill (thank you God) and headfist with dog in tow to the cheap and cheerful restaurant full of bronzed tourists and an East London family for whom everything was 'bangin''. Indeed, so it was.

Damon managed to shove in a chicken kebab while I again opted for beans and rice. Those muscles that run from you neck across your shoulders felt like someone was driving a Laguiole mezzaluna with a piercingly sharp blade into them. No pain, no gain an' all that, but to be truthful, I was feeling half dead and certainly smelt that way.

Ömer met us at the first pension we encountered, and had he not had rrom we would have both happily collapsed in the main street. The hot shower in the Gül Pansyıon was as invigorating as it was a fitting finale to the day.

I peeled of the filthiest socks since Edmund Hilary went walking up a hill and hallucinated as I lay down on a bed of cotton candy and drifted into a coma. No need to mention how well I slept.

Worth mentioning, however, is the breakfast we ate the next morning and also how Damon, possessing a slim physique at best, greedily polished off omelette for two (ie me and him) and then packed away half a kilo of the town's best clotted cream, known to Turks as kaymak and to the medical world as an A-grade aorta blocker.

Suddenly, we had energy again. And a full stomach. And the same filthy socks.

The word count is reporting 1187. It lies.

The Lycian Way: Day 3

I awoke with verve and gusto. And three hours before anyone else. And hungry.

God smiled down upon us. The lingering clouds parted and at the princely hour of half past eight the sun rose lazily over the crest of the mountains and spilled its warmth into the valley; not that any of that makes Damon more of a morning person. By the time he pulled his idle arse from its slumber I had devoured enough my own body weight in olives, tomatoes, cheese, cucumber, yoghurt, honey, bread and jam. Our clothing and backpacks remained damp but Brian has assured us that today;s scenery would be some of the most spectacular along the trail. He was right.

We started uphill on a goat track and soon understood that not a few trekkers were losing their way on the Faralya-Alınca route. Brian's hand-drawn map would hold us in good stead to avoid backtracking and simply getting waylaid. The goat track moved uphill through the now daily dose of conifers and then flattened out over the saddle and onto a tractor path, upon whose left side rose terraces with craggy olive trees. It was now warm. As we moved over the next ridge it becomes impossible to describe the natural beauty. Think sharp intake of breath with an irrepressible desire to do an accapella Sound of Music into possible followed by uncontrolled rolling about in fields of buttercups and other flowers oft illustrated in children's fairy tale books. I have neither talent nor faculties to do justice to the perfect union of colour that held us in its sway. All that and Pan's tree too. There were a young German couple and two middle aged English folk attending to maps and fresh blisters but they held no interest for us.

This was nature like I hadn't tasted for three year since the valleys of northern Pakistan. The cacophony and incessant grind and greyness of Istanbul was all but lost as my head drowned in a sensory overload. we took some excellent photos too.

As we became more attuned to walking we felt confident enough to ask a goat herder for a shortcut. On the advice of Brian we had planned to avoid the village of Kabak, for the sole reason that I refuse to go anywhere named after a vegetable. Especially 'Pumpkin'. It sounded too David Lynch for my liking. So Nasreddin pointed across a gully and Damon and I nodded like we knew what he was talking about. Though we actually did, since speaking with herdsmen was proving more successful than with the average Istanbul taxi driver.

The next hour was spent wandering and wondering whether our newly chosen path was in fact a shortcut to Alınca. you cannot expect someone who lives in these parts, living with the ebb and flow of nature to have any real concept of time and distance. I realised that I had been a bad student and asked him open-ended questions. How would he possibly know what half and hour was? He'd simply told us that to keep us all smiling. In any case, while our timing was out we were on the right path and after encountering a bubbling spring among the oleanders we found the recently bulldozed track that would lead us upwards and onwards.

A quick break was followed by an emormous amount of walking. All of it spectacular and the majority uphill. Goats fed among the pines on gnarled bushes and the Mediterranean wove in and out of view as we weaved among the rock faces and along ledges. Damon dabbled in sunbathing atop a precipice that looked down the valley to a small beach and Pumpkin village. We'd managed to organise a picnic lunch from the previous night's lodgings so we feasted on spinach and bulgur, rice and flat bread.

We started to tire as uphill inclines became steeper, the sun beat down harder and we halted more periodically for a breath of air. After filling up at another spring we had only a couple of kilometres ahead of us until we happened upon Alınca with another awe-inspiring vista across Yedi Burun, The Seven Noses, a group of sharp peninsulas jutting out from the coastline.

A continent of septuagenarian German, Swiss and Italian walkers were busily consuming Turkey's favourite state produced beer (which personally I think is rubbish), so Damon struck up conversation auf Deutsch - he's talented like that. Next thing you know they're telling me of their experiences in Australia (Cairns was a dive, Sydney felt stuck in the 1950s, everyone was drunk after 6pm).

Damon chatted with a man for a while and then translated something to me. It goes a little something like this, Apparently there is a species of black dwarfish beetles that ingest pine sap that passes unaltered through their digestive system. Bees then feed on their fecal matter, return to the hive and produce something that is later harvested and sold around the world as pine honey. Marketing it as Double-Poohed Out Conifer Sap probably wouldn't assist with reaching sales targets. Once thing's for sure, I was right to move from German to French class in 9th year. Who knows what cultural dirtiness may have been impregnated into my feeble adolescent mind?

Still, Damon's half-Hun and his Teutonic tongue had us on a free ride to Gelemiş, our next starting point.

Gelemiş is a town becoming increasingly popular for it's long peaceful and surprisingly unpolluted beach. We didn't care for that as we had just walked a bloody long way and ended up falling into the arms of an old woman who offered us a camping place in her backyard for a fiver each. Best of all she left us fresh bread, cucumber, tomatoes, olives and bread.

At this point in the journey I stopped wearing my sole pair of underpants.

The Lycian Way: Day 2

Of the four elements, wind is my least favourite. Principally since it reminds me of a bad childhood experience at the seaside in Port Broughton, The Moors (a place to conceal homicide victims), and conjures up a vision of Kate Bush on a stallion, bespoke in top hat and billowing chiffon, singing Wuthering Heights. The wind makes me shudder. It also tends to cause distress and unease to animals, namely my cat.

So in the first wee hour of the morning when the tempest blew up the valley and slammed into the side of the tent, there was general malaise all round. The tent seemed involved in some kind of synthetic, energetic and spasmodic Pilates session with Damon and I edging ever closer to the cliff face. At the point where I had to break loose from the tent in little more than my blue briefs to rescue a fugitive fly cover, it was clear we would have to move. Now.

Bleary-eyed and not in the best humour, the wind unleashed all its Zephyric force, currents of air violent and hostile worked against us as we hurriedly packed our belongings, took flight across a dirt field and sheltered in the shell of yet another unfinished residence that mars the landscape in these parts. However, this was not the moment to sound off about inevitable ugly cement progress but rather to huddle down in the among bricks and building material and so remain out of reach of the noreaster.

We awoke in a mass of thinly and widely spread goat excrement. Not an idyllic manner by which to begin the day. Damon was not smiling. A pear and apple each later we were determined to soldier on, left the turd, wind and cliff face behind us and head for the nearby village of Kozağaç. At the cistern we filled our canteen, cleaned our teeth, greeted an unfriendly canine with little-dog syndrome. Then along came Coşkan.

Without heading into territory of overused metaphors and images of the hospitable villager, Coşkan, his wife and two progeny, Yasin and Yasemin entreated us to the most onion-filled breakfast of gozleme I had ever known, coupled with the ubiquitous Turkish tea. I cooed over the baby, chatted with the young boy, talked endlessly wıth the man of the house and encouraged endlessly the woman of the house to bring more food.

Damon and I felt the need to move on as we hadn't really progressed very far and behind us gloomy clouds hung heavy over the formidably towering Baba Dağ. In recent memory an earthquake had triggered landslides that buried a row of houses and it was clear that the mountain seems fond of intermittently dropping several hundred tons of landmass, without warning, down its slopes and into the village.

Across scented pine forests, olive groves and pastures bursting with spring blossoms, it was difficult not to fall prey to the cliche of the pastoral. Had a knight dismounted his steed and practiced le droit de seigneur with some russet-haired buxom shepherdess, I don't think Damon and I would've considered it in poor taste. The views were arresting and it's always good to know that no matter how much city life can make you jaded, the country rejuvenates and restores your faith and enthusiasm.

Kirme was quite naturally the picture-perfect hamlet set amongst the flowering fields. Stone cottages with ramshackle fences, cows meandering. Everything was emerald green. Before I got sucked into some freaky Wizard of Oz type hallucination the mist enshrouded us once again and the heavens rained down upon us and our backpacks. We promptly took refuge under the conifers to realise half an hour too late that the rain had, as the Turks would say, 'soaked us like a sausage'. Go figure. As the steam rose from my dank and now reeking socks, our backpacks had collected enough water to be wrung out at some point in the future.

Unneighbourly bovines shot us furtive glances as they moved up the hill. I realised for the first time in a long time that I don't actually like cattle. Unless it's bleeding on a plate with my fork in it.

Soaked pas the point of return, we moved a little sluggishly to end our day entering Kelebek Valdisi, Butterfly Valley. We'd already exhausted our superlatives some time earlier and refusing to utter 'pretty' again, instead we stayed silent, mouths open and collecting rainwater. Kelebek Vadisi is freakin' gorgeous.

George House was owned by Rıdvan Bey and run by his son Hasan and other members of the extended family. Damon and I peeled off our wet suits and were inextricably drawn to the heat of the wood stove in the common room. Circulation returned to my toes and other, drier pension guests came through the doors. A few expatriates teaching English in Istanbul along with Brian, an Australian living in some remote village who spends his time planning and waymarking new treks.

As we lounged on Ottoman cushions scoffing a plethora of hot and cold meze, Brian volunteered his knowledge and gave us sound advice for the days ahead. A man of strong opinions, he warned us of shortcomings in our plans and suggested alternate routes.

We slept soundly with full stomach in a damp room, with the optimism that the sensational sunset was would bring more clement skies on the morrow and that our newfound information would ensure even better days to come.

The Lycian Way: Day 1

After a quick flight, taxi ride and half an hour or so in a minibus, Damon, I and our backpacks found ourselves full of excitement in Fethiye and almost ready for the journey ahead. We exited the otogar, crossed the road and filled up and cheap and cheerful Turkish fare. Next was a half hour dolmuş ride to the wrong place.

Perhaps due to our combined level of excitement and anticipation, we bounced off the bus, onto the road and soon realised that we weren't actually where we had hoped we would be. A man with finely sculpted hair and a lascivious look in his eye soon approached us and with a phone call and exchange of monies his friend and taxi driver quickly transported us to where we actually wanted to be.

We had begun.

Already the late afternoon was upon us so it was going to be a short walk the first day. Within minutes the outrageously blue waters and classic ruggedly macho Mediterranean coastline of Ölüdeniz spread out before us. The town itself is an over-hyped but much cherished destination for the English, fleeing their miserable climes at the earliest moment to lather up on solar rays, fresh fish and probably quite a lot of sex with handsome locals. However, Damon and I, neither of us being English, headed up over and around until we reached 500m and every word uttered was in amazement at the view.

Unknown to me at the time, my camera lens was as filthy as my underwear drawer and so it's with more than a scintilla of disappointment that I now bemoan the general state of my photographic ineptness. Still, here's Damon looking cheesy as Hell and unaware of just how incredibly soiled that hair is going to be in a week. I tried to capture that 'Lonely Planet cool' but feel that Damon's overall look adds an edge and perhaps even another dimension to travel photography.

We continued up, around, down, over and behind some other prepositions of movement until we met with our first of many pine tree groves. I was already regretting the weight of the third T-shirt and traveller companion's English-Turkish Bible I'd so hastily packed, but panoramas, vistas and other scenes abounded in beauty. I soon forgot about the provisions I'd packed and would carry around the entire week without once using them and instead focused on the dying light, my inexperience at mounting a tent in the dark and questioned whether in fact I was really going to manage without Starbucks caffe latte for this stretch of time.

Over the saddle of the hill we came upon a flat green pastoral scene and decided this would make a suitable location to pitch a tent. night was falling at at higher elevation the cold seemed to creep up on us as did the incredibly rapidly encroaching and all enveloping mist.

To end the first day with precipitous views, our tent was placed as close as possible to the edge of a 600m drop, to ensure that any ill-thought plan to sprint from the tent opening in the middle of the night, perhaps to meets the urges of nature, would certainly end in death with a spectacular view on the way down.

At some point between going to sleep and getting up again, the wind started to rage. At midnight we were heavily asleep under orange nylon, unaware of what Mother Nature had in store for us just an hour or two later.

As you can plainly see, the little orange dot halfway down the left hand side of the image was going to be no match for Nature's fury.

Leaving the kids at home

It's a tough life being a parent, replete with angst, arduous choices and troublesome decisions. When you love something and feel responsible for it (ie my cat), relinquishing ownership, even temporarily, is onerous.

Doped up on rabies vaccine.

Tomorrow I depart for the sun-drenched skies of southern Turkey. More precisely, my flatmate and I will embark on a seven day expedition across the magnificent landscapes of the Lycian region, nestled between the modern cities of Fethiye and Antalya. Synonymous with Northern Europeans and ex-Soviet holidaymakers, package tours and ugly tourist developments, this part of the Mediterranean was once inhabited by the Lycians, best remembered for rock-cut tombs which we hope to meet with along the way.

A year ago I never thought twice before squeezing short and shirts into a backpack and setting out from home. My position has somewhat altered now. I feel vexed about leaving Kebap at home. Really bad. More so after returning from the vet an hour ago where he had to receive his rabies vaccination. Kitty's a bit glum this evening, and I'm hit with that Catholic guilt again from which, as a good Protestant lad, I've suffered since birth.

Perihan Hanım, the wonderful authoritarian disguised as a dame d'un certain age living downstairs and whose bill-paying capabilities have to be fully experienced to also be appreciated, has volunteered to keep Kebap in food and water until my return. However, her generous offer hasn't assuaged my apprehension.

It's April, the sun has miraculously reappeared, and in the feline cosmos hormones are running at an annual high. Again, my responsibilities imply keeping my adolescent cat from the clamoring paws of rutting females. A surfeit of unclean images unsettle my feeble mind. While awkwardly clambering across scree, gazing deeply into the azure waters of the Mediterranean, I shudder at the thought of my cat set upon by young females, who, for wont of a better term, are achin' for it.

Still, at some point in time successful parenting means letting go of control. Kebap needs the freedom and space to find his own way. I just hope he doesn't hook up with the town bike, you know what I'm sayin'?

So. The Lycian Way. Tomorrow morning Damon and I board a plane to Dalaman and then work our way to the beginning of a trail that promises a dramatic mixture of nature, history and culture. Actually, after the last few months in Istanbul, nature is the sole requisite ingredient for happiness. I need extended intakes of fresh air. Kate Clow was the first to mark out the path not so long ago and I'm thankful to her and those who have since journeyed in her footsteps that I've been able to prepare easily for the journey. The rest is up to us.

I expect this kind of thing the entire parcours.

The weather report promises reasonable weather if not cool evenings. Pictures I've nastily downloaded from the Net without referencing herald breathtaking moments. All in all I plan to return to my hometown in a week, full of vim, earnest, and ready to face the final half semester of the academic year.

I'm really going to miss my cat.

http://www.lycianway.com

Kebap

Pre-attack Turkish-English strategic planning session.

After skimming through the Australian Quarantine and Something Else Service site yesterday I am reeling in horror at the discovery that Australia won't permit the import of any live animals from Turkey, no exceptions.

A highly responsible cat owner, I am having to reconsider the thought of returning home at all. There is simply no way that I am leaving without the psychopathic bundle of fur that is my best new friend.

I thought Rome was a town for cats. Istanbul is the town for cats. Millions of well-fed overweight moggies endlessly trawl daily through refuse bins in search of that savoury morsel, scrambling up and along the walls of the neighbourhood mosque, gorging on piles of cheap diarrhea-inducing dried pellets scattered in front of apartment entrances and generally living high life alla Turka.

Kebap was just a wee young lad when I espied him pining away in the street last September. Neighbourhood watch later informed me that the mother has passed away and his brother's whereabouts were lately unknown, so I took the exceptionally small and energetic bundle into my care.

Faster, pussycat, faster.

It had been some time since I'd been responsible for any living creature other than myself. I first named him Abdullah since I've always considered it a solid masculine Muslim name. Neighbourhood watch duly informed me calling my cat after Mohammed's father was clearly improper - I reside directly across from the mosque and calling the cat in each evening for dinner might upset a few local souls. More scarily, an unfortunate English woman teaching in the Sudan had been incarcerated after designating a teddy bear Mohammed earlier the same week. As always, I'm lovin' the radically under-educated.

A friend suggested Tarçın, Cinnamon. Nope.

Kebap is Turkish.

It's all about the love. And possibly a dash of bewilderment.

Naming over, we've spent the following six months understanding that neither one of us is particularly easy to get along with. No-one alerted me, until it was far too late, the need to discipline a cat. Kebap likes to bite, especially my face. And especially between the hours of three to five am, when I'm apparently not expecting it. I've recently learned to sleep with no trace of hand or foot peeking out from under the duvet. Any sighting is good cause for attack.

Kebap drinks only the freshest water from the shower basin, obsesses over paper and plastic bags, and sadly, prefers napping on the flatmate's bed than curling up on mine. He takes more than his fair share of the pillow in the early hours of the morning and doesn't understand that jumping on my face is not the way to get more food, now.

He is obsessed with my ink-jet printer and takes immeasurable pleasure from it.

As with any ward, guardianship entails numerous duties. Good food doesn't come cheap and my otherwise handy Turkish teacher's card provides no discount for vaccinations. After much anguish I've decided against sterilisation. The vet informed me that castration keeps the cat calmer during those heady days of spring; however, I'd need to watch his diet for the remainder of his life, as a tendency to put on weight is the most notable side effect of feline vasectomy. He also informed me that Kebap would turn into something of a balcony-potato, preferring inactivity to mad minutes of insane inexplicable movements through the apartment. The last thing I want in an animal is laziness. I'm Protestant. There is no greater sin committed than that by the idler.

So Kebap will remain intact, just as nature intended. He may well add to the city's feline population in time to come, but as a handsome cat I think he ought to reserve the right to act upon a few carnal urges from time to time. Only ugly things shouldn't reproduce.

Kalmak ya da kalmamak

Do I stay or do I go now? So sang that little British band all those many moons ago. At present, I'm posing myself the same question as the gleam and glitter of this marvellous metropolis fades to something resembling a burnished walnut commode and I begin to wonder whether it's time for me to move on.

And so we arrive yet again at that point in my life where the promise of stability and career development is outweighed yet again by the possibility that countries unseen and lands in far flung places hold untold pleasures and discoveries that could excite me more that my once-beloved Istanbul.

The last few months have been an emotional nightmare and I need a change. After ten days on a sumptuous African safari in Uganda I quickly recognised that what had once pulled me to Istanbul was now the reason I wanted to get out. Uganda was lush, green, supplier of abundant fresh fruit and air and I wore nothing but sandals for the entire trip. Istanbul feels filthy, unhygienic and decrepit. Will this god-damn wind ever cease?

Winter in Istanbul, and this is my third, hangs oppressively. There is nothing but grey tones to the sky, the buildings, and the faces around me. The air reeks of petrol fumes and something else unpleasant, the apartment water supply stinks of turpentine, and my bedroom door handle has fallen off. The top button on my brown cotton work trousers has disappeared. Everyone talks of the coming water shortage in summer but I see nothing but a slightly altered form of it hanging over my head. Tell me, aside from Manchester is there a city in the world that had more cloud cover?

La grisaille. Last week I bought a 5-disc Edith Piaf box set which tells you a lot about the person I am and indeed the fact that I listened to Mon Dieu on loop for at least half an hour means that it's both time to extend my musical appreciation skills and get myself some sun.

Me happier, where the grass is apparently greener.

I love Istanbul but need to get myself out of this rut. Suggestions please.

Baci di Napoli

The Italians are insane.

More than Istanbullites, Neapolitans have mastered the art of living in a city on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

It's a full year and a half since I last visited the Kingdom through which far too many have passed and left their mark.

I captured this photo of Orlando and I somewhere in the Spanish Quarter this afternoon.

The Municipal Council need to seriously reconsider how they are tackling this city's waste management. Quite strange in a city with a high population of bidets.

Probably not the first person to write about this.

The most distressing part of my job is waking at 6am every morning. More calamitous still is that my body, even when on holidays, chooses to stir at the very same hour. I tossed and turned in my comfortable bed for about ten minutes until giving in to the fact that I was not going to get a sleep in. My body wouldn't allow it.

A lot of old things without much town planning.

Showered, shampoo-ed and shaved I went downstairs to my Internet-booked hotel marble lobby where breakfast awaited me. Italians need sugar for breakfast like a smack addict craves heroin. After a couple of fresh doughy puffed donut-shaped things and three caffe lattes, I was high and pumped on a sugar fix that made me feel strangely energetic yet aggressive and belligerent at the same time. I was ready to conquer the Forum.

Looking across the lower level of the Vittorio Emanuele memorial to Trajan's Column.

I retraced my steps from the previous day and worked my way over to Trajan's Market and more history that any one soul can inhale in a single breath. The vista of the Fori Imperiali from the wide main thoroughfare is one of the most dazzling steps back into our humanity's past. The Forum was once the centre of political, judicial and commercial life in the largest city of the most powerful empire the world had known. What remains still commands my respect; what must have been is beyond my imagination. However, clearly not beyond that of a number of erudite archaeologists and historians who together with some clever publishers have put together one of those smart little tourist publications to present a then-and-now portrait of the Eternal City. I browsed through the book stands for a while, eventually deciding that it was indeed foolish to waste further time perusing when the ruins actually it stood before me. I just lack imagination, and that, no money can buy.

Either Castor or Pollux gracing the entrance to the Piazza Senatorio.

I picked up the pace and raced about. The temple of Saturn aside that dedicated to Castor and Pollux, buildings raised and then fallen to the worship of Gods long discredited (see, it happens to all of them sooner or later). Rome's beauty is bewildering. I wandered about trying to reach what I considered would be the best vantage points for photographs, somehow ending up in front of the country's foremost monument to an over-sized ego - the massive white colossus to Vittorio Emanuele that backs onto the Campidoglio. And adfter climbing the stairway I admired both sides of the Piazza Senatorio structures designed by Michelangelo. Impressive.

Looking west from the Campidoglio.

I got waylaid while heading for the Vatican and ended up in across the Tiber in Trastevere, though I did manage to visit the fab Santa Maria in Cosmedin before completely losing my way. In Australia my hometown was at one time considered the City of Churches but that is one Hell of a misnomer. More truthfully it's home to the mullet people who like cars even if other cities might also fight for such an honorific title. After admiring a mosaic floor that was about a millenium older than any structure at home, my stomach cried out for foccacia.

God, Italian food is scrumptious. Even the take-away version is spectacular in comparison to what I suffer in Istanbul. Don't get me wrong, it's just that after two years I have no desire to fill my belly ever again with döner or dürüm. Sated with Parmesan and prosciutto, I moved progressively into shabbier picaresque neighbourhoods, decrepit buildings the colour of rich ochre ever so patiently awaiting renovation. Unlike Sydney, it'll be some time before the chrome and pine wood craze materialises here.

After gaining two kilograms from a single Italian breakfast. I resolved to diet immediately. The temple of Vespasian and Arch of Septimus Severus are in the background.

At some stage in the afternoon the river re-appeared. I crossed it and spent the rest of the afternoon in near-postcard-perfecto Rome. Campo di' Fiori, the Fontana di Trevi and the Piazza Navona, where Bernini's masterpiece stood unhappy, shrouded in scaffolding while encircled by a market hawking every Christmas stocking stuffer that 10 Euro could buy. While I was desperate to grab a Pope Benedict dartboard, as luck would have no-one would change a 100 Euro note, which is strange in a city where everything costs more than that. I settled for some chocolate for friends at home but unfortunately had consumed it before exiting the square.

The bell tower of Santa Maria in Cosmedin and the Temple of Hercules.

Intoxicated from history and European glamour, I did what I always do when visiting another city; looked for work. Born without the right to a European passport was once the bane of my existence. I think differently now, but for many years it was my sole focus and a debilitating chip on my shoulder. Yet again I was turned away from the reception of a reputable Roman English teaching school for mot having the correct working papers. These days I don't worry so much. Istanbul remains, 9 days out of 10, where I want to be. It would be just be pleasant to have some options from time to time. But I no longer wish for Europe to cave in on itself. Well, not that frequently.

And so my day ended. My feet very sore. I felt elated. I was asleep in the hotel by 10pm. Ready to awake for sugar at 6am.

Fontana di Trevi.

La citta

Rome is an impressive city, stuffed with history and a lot of people wearing glamorous clothing and miserable expressions. I am, after all, in the heart of Europe, where long ago good manners gave way to haughty expressions and a judgments based on the quantity of instantly recognisable brans names worn. Luckily, Europe has history, otherwise I’d be just as happy to see the place bombed into Hell.

The rather outrageously decorated facade.

It has to be said that Rome is without a doubt one of the most beautiful cities on Earth and I cannot help but compare it with my beloved Istanbul, with whom it shares some of its past but little of the spoils of which empires usually profit. Constantine moved the capital of the dwindling Roman Empire eastwards in the 4^th century and Rome was reduced not to long after to a city of several tens of thousands of inhabitants. Meanwhile, Constantinople blossomed and underwent a spectacular transformation as Constantine and his successors directed public works that would stand the test of time and still remain among the city’s best fifteen centuries later. Istanbul under the Byzantine Emperors and afterwards the Ottoman rulers was for many centuries the City of the World’s Desire. Rome, for its part, the Eternal City, knew the Renaissance and some of the most splendid artistic expression ever known. I kinda like both.

As the French would say, le plafond.

Still, both metropolises are aging none too well. Traffic chokes the thoroughfares, infrastructure is generally of poor quality, and it’s telling that in both cities successive governments have failed miserably to provide inhabitants with an adequate underground train system. It’s fair to say that you would expect certain delays owing to archaeological digs when working on an underground transport project in either of these great towns. However, the delays are outrageously long and unacceptable. Either dig or don’t dig. And if you find something, then weigh up the value of the find with the fact that whatever is there has probably been buried and long-forgotten and would have continued to be so had the metro system not been undertaken in the first place. People in these cities deserve fair transport systems and probably would find them more valuable than than a few more artefact's stuck on shelves in glass cases. In fact, it would be interesting to discover just how many of the inhabitants of Istanbul and Rome actually visit their own museums. I'd pretty much better they opt for better public transport over another glass-encased collection of Phyrigian artefacts.

Anyway, all I’m saying is that to my friends, Romans, countrymen and Istanbullites, you should be expecting more from your local representatives. Especially in the way of transport.

Rome’s weather was surprisingly mild and I was able to manage without the heavy coat and warm socks that I seemed to need so much at home. Istanbul has a chill factor that requires a scarf and gloves during the months of December to March. Here I was able to walk out of the hotel almost naked.

Overkill. But I like it.

Interestingly, within moments of leaving the hotel I came across a multitude of Muslims finishing prayer. I think it very interesting to find a large population of practising Muslims in the very centre of the Catholic world, trying to picture a gathering of Christians in Mecca. Still, that was pointless.

The fabulously rich facade of Santa Maria Maggiore stood out as I strolled down Via Carlo Alberto and wondered how much money had it actually to taken to construct all of this. And if the Italians of today can barely manage to maintain a place within the G8, it must have clearly been a different situation in earlier days. It takes a lot of cash to construct stuff like this.

The original church was established on the Esquiline Hill in the 4^th century on the very same spot where snow had magically fallen during the middle of the Roman summer. Since then Popes have added to the edifice until it became one of the great Basilicas of the city. Santa Maria’s interior is rich. Lots of gold. Apparently, the first boatload of it brought back by Colombus and his buddies from the Americas was used in the construction of the coffered ceiling. Mosaics line the nave above 4^th century columns and the whole thing is quite spectacular indeed. Best of all it a mosaic depicting the Coronation of the Virgin. Damn impressive.

I left the basilica feeling as though 12 years between visits had been too long a time. Thought that I might make it back again tomorrow.

San Pietro in Vincolo is another favorite because I love a good legend-cum-story and this one has it. The chains that held St Peter in the dank Mamertine Prison somehow ended up in Constantinople. In the 500’s the Empress Eudoxia popped one of them into a church and sent the other by FedEx to her daughter in Roma. Pope Leo I received it as a gift, which should come as no surprise since the church has always received much more than it has given in return. Long after being correctional accessories for St Peter, the two chains somehow ended up together in Rome again and are now displayed below the high altar.

Climbing the stairway to see St Peter in Chains

I believe none of it, apart from the fact the Pope Leo got one as a present since almost everything of worth in the whole of human history has passed through the rapacious paws of the Catholic establishment. Glad to be a protestant.

The same building also contains MichelAngelo’s Moses adorning the tomb of Juluis II, a latter-day pope I quite like since Raphaels’ painting of him is a triumph. A laminated A4 size version of it helps me to teach adjectives of description to my private students, however, that is irrelevant.

Michaelangelo has initially planned to adorn Papa’s tomb with a lot of marble fixtures, but since the Pope himself became more excited about up-and-coming basilica of St Peter’s, Mike only every got around to finishing Moses and a couple of The Dying Slaves when he was asked to start work on the Sistine Chapel.

From this very moment in time can be pinpointed the inability of Mediterranean peoples to finish what they started or to concentrate on only one thing at a time. Now there's an article waiting to be written. Anyway, the painting of the Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel took precedence, The Dying Slaves ended up in Paris and Florence and today the father of the Jews sits alone among empty niches with a couple of horns in his head that should in fact be beams of light. Such was the poor quality of biblical translators from Hebrew to Italian during the Renaissance.

I am loving Rome.

The very polished interior of St Pietro in Vincolo.