Above the cliffs of Olympos flames of volcanic methane gas burn throughout the day and night. “Like eternal flames,” a Canadian backpacker told me. “You can’t put them out.”
We walked nearly 8km from our hotel to the Chimera thanks to some mis-information. Finally arriving at the site after about an hour and a half walking in the thick humidity, we were drenched and not exactly happy to see more heat. That was until I remembered that the flames supposedly couldn’t be put out and for research purposes only of course, I decided to try my hand. My first attempt, splashing a little water on a small flame, put the flame out momentarily, but it quickly …

One part natural wonder, one part thermal bath, one part ancient roman ruins that’s the recipe for Hierapolis and Pamukkale. Built in an area of significant thermal activity, I can only imagine what ancient people’s thought when they arrived at the site. Huge fields of cotton looking calcium deposits formed by mineral rich thermal water, Pamukkale is an impressive natural wonder even today. Like something out of ancient mythology, the pools look like hot springs in a cloud from the ruins of Heirapolis situated above. It’s not hard to imagine the pantheon of Roman Gods soaking in the pools. The ruins themselves are still actively being excavated and unlike Ephesus they have hardly been rebuilt. …

From Istanbul we joined the backpacker circuit of Turkey and made our way down to Selcuk and the ruins of Ephesus. You can imagine our surprise when we arrived in Selcuk not to the hassle of a thousand touts, but rather polite offers of just a few.
Our expectations were high for the Ephesus ruins. Since the eastern Mediterranean is a seismic zone, most of the ancient Greek and ancient Roman ruins found in Asia Minor are piles of rubble. The draw to Ephesus is that much of the city has been recovered in decent condition and significantly reconstructed. The unfortunate side of this is that some of the areas have been very poorly restored with poured …

From modern Berlin we headed out to the rest of Germany to visit friends, castles and medieval fortresses. Perhaps there were pretzels (called brezels here), beer and chocolate as well.
First stop on our magical castle tour was the region of Westphalia. Home to Roman ruins, Medieval ruins and chocolate, Cologne was a fabulous place to start heading back to the future. Although our first stop in Cologne should have been the chocolate factory, we went first to the Cologne Cathedral to check the cultural and architectural box off the itinerary for the day. After a long walk through old Cologne, including a Roman excavation site in the middle of the city, we made our way to …