In 2011 I went to Turkey with my friend Sharyn. That westward-leaning peninsula has been the crossroads of continents for millennia and everyone who did so left their mark, but especially the Greeks and the Romans. It’s no wonder Turkey has twenty-one world heritage sites; they could easily have twenty-one more.

But my favorite was Termessos, three thousand feet up in the Taurus Mountains with stunning views in every direction. It was abandoned when their aqueduct was destroyed in an earthquake (the Mediterranean being its own little Ring of Fire, this happened a lot), no one knows when.

Our guide told us that Alexander the Great himself besieged Termessos, failed, and in a rage went off to besiege Sagalassos instead. Poor Sagalassos.

I loved the theater the most. Above, the view, the theater, and me sitting in the loges.

For thems that could afford tents, there were holes for tent poles. Season ticket holders had their names carved in their seats. The loges even had armrests.

And then there were the cheap seats. They might have been cheap but if they couldn’t see the action there was always the view, as in the photo at top left. I don’t know how the actors managed to remember their lines with that in back of them.

If you exited pursued by a bear from that stage you’d fall off a cliff.

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