Lycian Way

Breakfast was at 8.30 and we found the other couple (P&R) already seated on the veranda. They are doing the same trip as us, only one day ahead. They are off on the first of the long walks today, then we catch up with them tomorrow. We helped ourselves to juice, bread with savouries or preserves, yoghurt and fruit. We declined the eggs.
The chef made us a picnic - would we like cheese, salami, mixed - so we went for mixed. And we collected a paper bag each before we set off on our walk to find the ruins of the ancient city of Laodikeia.
It started off quite hazy, which meant it wasn't so hot and around the Lodge there seems to be pleasant cooling zephyr. We needed to follow the red and yellow stripes painted on the rocks, supplimented with some cairns along the way. Our first landmark was the shepherd's hut just below the lodge grounds, not too difficult, then we trekked up hill a bit and followed the contours round the hill. Mount Olympos towered over us to left. Apparently there is a restaurant on the top, which you can get to via a cable car. Looks a more likely route as it is a very craggy, spikey peak. The way was lined with familiar plants - lots of euphorbias, thistles, sage, minature leaved holly bushes, giant fir trees that may be casurinas and much more. At one point we found a euphorbia covered in small lime green and black caterpillars, then Alan noticed some gigantic caterpillars, again on euphorbia. They must have some special way of getting rid of the latex so they can eat them. We think they are the caterpillars of the Hawk moth, hyles euphorbiae robertsi. We also stopped and watched a treecreeper in one of the tall fir trees, busily working its way up the trunk.

The path was strewn with rocks for the unwary to stub against and it wound up and down, across small ravines and around the hillsides. The guide was very helpful, but from halfway along we began to have difficulty locating the red and yellow stripes, backtracking a couple of times and finding that mysteriously we were several metres above or below the next marker. There is a scree slope to cross with some fascinating rocks - like a mudstone with inclusions resembling cork bark and maybe trees and fruits - like nuts in shells. Perhaps we were just being a bit fanciful. Then, when we were sure we were on the wrong track we saw the sign to Laodokia about ten meteres above us, so we scrambled up the hill and found another track. This took us upwards and we soon had our first glimpse of the ruined city. There are few buildings left, but from those few you can see that this must have been a spectacular site, with views down the valley to the sea. There were windows made with the cut stones, using stones with a bevelled edge. Many walls have fallen, but there are some still partially standing, showing the careful building that has lasted nearly two millennia.
We found a group of flattish stones and sat down for our picnic - mixed rolls with cheese, salami,tomatoes and herbs all crammed in and tasting very good. We also had juice and an apple. It was lovely in the shade of the tall trees, as at 1pm the sun was out and it had become quite hot. In this place we seemed to be in the lee of one of the hills and no cooling breeze reached us.
The return trip was also challenging as many of the rock markings are visible from the outward journey, and sometimes obscured from the other side. Nevertheless we made good time. We stopped at one point to watch a skink, very pretty with greenish markings and a light green ubderbelly. Having spotted one, we soon saw quite a few dashing among the rocks.
We were back to the shepherd's hut quite suddenly and walked back up to the Lodge for a rest on the everso slightly breezy veranda. Lovely. So far no tortoises have been spotted despite the warning notice at the entrance to the Lodge.
Update:
After resting for a while we set off to hunt the tortoise, and found about half a dozen inthe scrub below the Lodge. Then,as we were walking back up to the room we spotted another one in the grounds in the middle of some purple flowers. Time for showers and a change before beer and monkey nuts on the verands before dinner.

Dinner was again fabulous, with the main being a mixed grill BBQ - lots of meat and very filling. There is another couple here tonight doing the same walks as us only a day behind (K&K). Inntravel seem to have it all well organised. When we told Hakan that we had seen the tortoises he told us that he used to have one that moved so fast they called him 'turbo'. Then Alan put some comments in the guest book before we retired.

Olympos Mountain Lodge