Teos Limanı

BV at anchor off the new/ancient quay

Unfortunately, there was virtually no wind for our journey north from Körmen Adasi so we ended up motoring for the majority of the 2 hour passage. We anchored in Teos Limanı just outside the harbour of ancient Teos and a little short of the modern quay which has, at its core, the ruins of one from that ancient harbour. It is very easy to see why a population centre grew up here in times gone by. The gently shelving bay is well protected from the strong northerly meltemi and has a sandy bottom with good holding for an anchor. It is an ideal spot for a harbour and we certainly had a good night’s sleep here. Before that, however, we had to go ashore to explore the ruins of the ancient city and, more prosaically, to walk across the peninsula to the modern village of Siğacik to buy bread.

We landed the dinghy on the new/ancient quay and walked up the hill (from which we had a good view of BV at anchor) past a couple of signs which hopefully pointed towards the agora and the temple but with nothing in particular in sight.

However, we did find what looked like the ruins of some immense city walls, so we followed those for a bit, came to a track, followed that in the general direction of Siğacik and then stumbled upon an ancient cistern.

We’ve seen a few cisterns in our recent travels but this one seemed bigger than most at a good 6m high and about 20m long. It would certainly have stored a fair quantity of water for the good burghers of ancient Teos.

A little further along the track, past a farmhouse which had been built onto some of the ancient city wall, we found the remains of the Temple of Dionysus. The information board told us that this had been the ancient world’s largest temple dedicated to Dionysus. Apparently, it closely resembled the Temple of Athena at Priene in layout and was surrounded by a trapezoid-shaped wall which was itself surrounded by stoas (doubtless, containing artisans’ shops and stalls etc). There’s not much left standing now but the location of the external columns are still clear. Whilst this was by no means an enormous temple, it would still have been a good size.

Bouleuterion

The paved footpath that ran down to the Temple of Dionysus continued on to a fork with one branch leading to the city’s bouteurerion and the other to the theatre. It was a substantial walk to each building from the temple and it seemed to us that this ancient city was more spread out than any other that we had so far visited in Turkey. Perhaps that is also because there is now little evidence of any housing or infill building between the major public buildings unlike, say, at Priene. It was also one of the least modernised sites. The paved footpaths became gravelled paths that became proper footpaths across fields of wheat and clover. It was almost as if we were discovering the sites for ourselves; well, it would have been but for a group of 8 young Turkish people who reached the bouleuterion just before us.

Theatre

The theatre, parts of which date from the 2^nd century BC, was much more overgrown than the bouleuterion but the stage is still quite well preserved as are some parts of the seating. We climbed to the top of the seating, to the vaulted corridor and saw from this vantage point the city’s acropolis to the north and the harbour (and BV’s mast) to the south.

Having scrambled across open grassland and then across the acropolis (little to see but scattered stonework) we made our way to a track and thence into modern-day Siğacik.

Inside one of the towers

The outskirts of the town are unremarkable but the old town has impressive walls and some even more impressive towers at the corners of those walls.

Inside, the walled town is quiet and, it seemed to us, primarily residential. The houses and streets were all very clean and well cared for and it had quite an up market feel to it. Located so close to the harbour it surprised us that there weren’t more shops and restaurants – perhaps it was that we had visited at the wrong time of day or too early in the season.

We bought the bread we needed and headed back to BV, through the ruins of ancient Teos and down to the harbour. In the final stages of our walk back we passed a Turkish family (teenaged daughter, Mum, Dad and Grandad) having a barbecue outside a camper van close to the root of the ancient quay. Grandad was cooking chicken fillets and the rest of the family were enjoying flame grilled köfta kebabs and green peppers. The food smelled delicious and we waved and said ‘Murhaba’ (‘hello’, one of our few words of Turkish) as we passed. Dad, immediately, indicated that we should stop and his daughter was dispatched to the back of the camper van, quickly returning with 2 ice-cold cans of pop. We were asked to join them and offered some of their food; they clearly wanted to host us as guests in their country. Dad spoke a little more English than our Turkish so we had some common language but a lot of the conversation was carried out with much hand-waving and signing. The drinks were very welcome but we didn’t want to overstay their hospitality and have their food go cold, so after a short while we took our leave and returned to BV. Later that evening, as we sat in the cockpit in the twilight after our dinner, we heard quiet strains of music drifting across the ancient harbour to us from our friendly family enjoying their evening beside the ancient harbour.

Teos Limanı, Turkey