At the moment the weather is holding and on a mirror flat sea the ms Prinsendam entered the port of Antalya. Looking at it the port with the eye of a sailor it comes over a bit strange in comparison with other ports. First of all it is pristine in its cleanliness. Not just the cruise terminal but also the cargo berths. I was used to that for Kusidasi but that is mostly a Cruise port only. Today we saw large bulk carriers docked here and it is still spotless, while they can be quite messy while loading or unloading. Turkish Harbormasters must be very fastidious.
A port overview from the Electronic Chart. The Prinsendam is on the angled dock to the mid left.
The port is sort of L to U shaped with a breakwater protecting the U. To the west there is a large marina, in the middle the cruise terminal and to the East regular cargo docks and this time they were mainly occupied with bulkcarriers. The port has a Free Zone which means visiting ships can purchase stores and provisions tax free. Antalya always used to be a small town but has in the last decades it has grown to over a million people in the greater Municipal.
This makes Antalya a town of two faces. The old town with the port and then on the far side on the top of the hills a white city with apartment blocks where the majority of the locals live. The two seem to be fairly well separated as the old town area which is not exactly busy with locals. So the new world must remain more or less at the new world side.
Hadrians Gate survived for nearly 2000 years, the end parts still in good shape but the middle has been reconstructed.
However we called here basically to see all the old stuff. And there is a lot of it and some of it survived very well through the ages. Our roving reporter was today on the city tour which included a visit to the local museum and a walk through the old town. Most prominent item in the old town is Hadrian’s Gate. Erected after 137 AD when he came to visit. He must have instigated quite a few buildings and other construction throughout the realm as on the opposite side of the Roman Empire, in Britannia, he had Hadrian’s Wall built to keep the Scottish out although in that period they were still called Celts. If things go the way the Scottish want it at the moment, Hadrian’s Wall might be resurrected again in the near future if Scotland would go independent.
Romans did all sorts of good and bad things but nobody can accuse them of not focusing on cultural things and through the ages a lot of it has been excavated.
Emperor Hadrian. In the days before newspapers and photos, I suppose the only way to show what the big boss looked like was to put up a statue in the most prominent towns of the Empire
The nicest finds have been brought together in the local museum and our friend Hadrian is there again as well.
An open air “Back Gammon” table.
What intrigued most of the visitors was the Roman Backgammon table (or a similar ancient game played in the same way) made out of a sort of concrete. (This was also a Roman invention). The town was very much appreciated by the guests and that normally means it will come back on the schedule. For Antalya the challenge is that the port is not so big as far as maneuvering space is concerned. An S class or R class is not an issue, a Vista might work but anything bigger will be a challenge. Thus I do not expect the real big boys to come in.
On departure the Prinsendam churned up a lot of silt while leaving from the dock and silt indicates clearly: deeper drafted ships will face a challenge. Most of the very large cruise ships do not have that deep a draft, they solved the challenge by going for a broader beam but they still draw about 5 or 6 feet more than the Prinsendam.
Tomorrow we will visit the 2nd Turkish port on our cruise along the coast and that is Bodrum. We will arrive at 10 am in the morning and dock at the new pier which can take cruise ships of any size. The Prinsendam with yours truly on board inaugurated that pier in 2010 when it was still under construction. Before that time we used to anchor and ran a tender service straight into town. Now we are way out of town but the company will run a shuttle bus service all day, so the result is the same. We will get everybody in an easy way to downtown.
Weather for tomorrow: Sunny, with a gentle breeze and noon time temperatures hovering around the 21oC or 71oF.
(All photos courtesy of Roving Reporter Lesley)
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