Today was a travel day. We spent a deal of time winding our way along the coastal road and then through the city of Izmir (according to the Lonely Planet the 3rd largest city in Turkey). The route through Izmir took us along the water front; it looked really inviting with the bright sun, blue water, promenade and gardens but with no obvious places to stop we only admired it from the truck cab. The city seemed to stretch for miles as the road passed through one community after another. This gave us an opportunity to admire the way the Turks have put modern roads through old towns. As it passes through a congested shopping or market area inside a town the road is made up of three pieces, the center lanes are for through traffic and there is a lane on each side for local traffic. At intersections the through-road simply goes under the intersection with a well signed 4.8m clearance.


Our destination for the day was the town of Bergama (the ruins of Pergamum) where we had read were some (more!) interesting ruins and a camping/caravan ground.

We planned on maybe spending a couple of nights at this camping ground in order to take care of a bunch of business and organizational things


As promised it had toilets, electricity, wifi but only a trickle of hot water.