Karmylassos...Levissi...Kayakoy

Monday was an interesting day, some practical matters, a surprise, and then a walk through the more recent ruins of Karmylassos, later called Levissi, now Kayakoy. It was a largely Greek town of some 400 homes, 6k from Olu Deniz and Fethiye, near the western Mediterannean coast. In 1923, during the "exchange" of populations ordered by the Great Powers, all of Turkey's substantial Greek population were "re-settled" in Greece--and vice versa. Many hundreds of thousands of persons. Nevermind these populations had been intermingled, more or less peacably, at every level, for centuries. Many centuries. It was an incredible upheaval and tragedy, memorialized in Louis de Bernieres' Birds Without Wings, a very great contemporary novel. Karmylassos is now a ghost town, 400 empty homes, churches, chapels, schools, and other buildings. It is not yet a World Heritage Site, so far as I know, but ought to be one.

I credit the Turks for memorializing this tragic part of the birth of their Republic.

Just a portion of Karmylassos, hundreds roofless homes, shops, chapels...

Some little bit of color remains on the stones and plaster

There were two main churches, an upper and a lower, and many, 
many smaller chapels;

this is the interior of the upper church

A view of the customs house at the top of the hill, from the 
upper church



Hearth and home; one of the characters in Birds Without Wings observes... 
there are no greater evils in the world than religion and nationalism

One of perhaps a dozen or more small chapels scattered about the town

School

Public fountain

Entrance to the lower church; the palms a symbol of Christian 
victory

Porch mosaic

Interior of the lower church

The practical matter: in the morning we stopped by the Letoon 
hospital in Fethiye, which has a "tourist" department, and had

Vicki's troublesome shoulder examined; in this and future pix 
you'll see her in a sling, but, hopefully, it will be getting better,

particularly after a shot, some prescriptions, etc.

The surprise: Turkey is 98% Muslim, and we had despaired of finding pork, 
starting a month ago, when our supply of bacon and pork chops from Bulgaria 
ran out; imagine our delight, in Fethiye, finding the Pork Shop (for UK tourists);

we stocked up again, as much as our little freezer permits