Pergamum

Pergamum. Was. Awesome.

It is a close battle with Ephesus (still to come I promise), 

but I actually think personally it squeaks out on top as my favorite of the sites we saw. 

It is situated high on a mountain top, and you can see it from Miles away.

 Beautiful. 

There is a gondola to the top actually, because the tour buses won't fit up the incredibly small road with hairpin turns! I'm sure that would have been a beautiful view as well, but we drove to the top instead because of the collective fear of heights from the littles that day! 

The city was originally settled in the 8th Century BC.

The Acropolis at Pergamum is modeled after the one in Athens.

It is built of white marble, and was completed during Hadrian II's reign (AD 125- 138). 

There is still much of it in excellent condition, and it was amazing. 

Pergamum is mentioned in the book of Revelation as one of the "seven churches"

Many of the ruins were actually taken to the Pergamum Museum in Berlin, where we hope to visit sometime now that we've been to the real deal! 

Also, two large alabaster urns were transported from here and placed on either side of the nave in the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul by Sultan Murad III.

The boys standing in front of the Library ruins.

The ancient Library of Pergamum was the second best in the Greek Civilization.

It was said to contain more than 200,000 parchment scrolls. Many of those scrolls though, 

are said to have gone to it's "rival library"in Alexandria,

 as Marc Anthony gave them as a wedding gift to Cleopatra in 41 BC.

Now, I mentioned it was up on a mountain top?

Well, another reason that we didn't take the gondola to the top-

was that it was getting pretty windy and this storm (behind Porter), complete with lightning was rolling in!

We knew we would have to make good use of our pre-storm window and get off that mountain! 

Luckily, it was about perfect timing, as we took the time we wanted, but it started to pour minutes after we got in the car! Way to go us.

Different views of what remains of the great "Temple of Trajan"

Something about giant pillars and boys. 

At nearly every site we saw, it was an impulse just to TRY to push it over. 

Alas. no luck.

Porter really likes to try to take pictures these days. He's getting better I think-

He even got Miles to look in his direction!

The ever present Poppies make an appearance. 

Gotta love all the antiquities just laying around!

Now this is one of my favorite pictures of my boys! 

Don't know why, but I just love it. 

Everyone just doing their thing I guess, and with a backdrop like that…

it is a great one to remind me of our time here in Turkey.

Now, Pergamum is sometimes not on people's list because it is just a tad out of the way I suppose. 

It was 100% worth it to us though. I thought it was fantastic. 

We'd recommend it to anyone!