Today, Saturday, was a day off for Susan Wright, Anne Frautschi, Carol Wood and myself so we (I?) decided to go to Aspendos, about a 45 minute drive up the coast (towards Antalya) from Ali Bey. It was a beautiful day, high 60s, clear blue skies…very similar to a California day.

Aspendos is known for having the best-preserved theatre of antiquity, the Roman Theatre of Aspendos. It has  a diameter of 96 metres (315 ft) and provided seating for 7,000, though in recent times they have fit up to 20,000 people in that space. Interestingly, it’s built against a hill to minimize construction cost. The acoustics inside were amazing…Carol was sitting on the far side of the theatre from where we walked up and I called across to her (she’ll admit she does not have bat-like hearing) and she immediately waved over to us! Pretty cool. The theatre dates from around 150 AD so is nearly 2000 years old!

We of course took lots of photos. I asked someone to take a photo of the four of us…and somehow we ended up in a photo shoot with them…they were particularly taken with Susan and the flower in her hair. She’s half-Turkish by ethnicity too…I heard them say how beautiful she was.

There are also other ruins, including part of an aqueduct, a basilica, a market (Agora) and more. I climbed up the “theatre hill” where I could see the basilica and part of the wall and overlook the theatre.

Tomorrow it’s back to practice, since I don’t play a match and back to getting ready for the individuals. It was nice to get off the “cruise ship” that is Ali Bey.