"Wonderful Kizkalesi"

"You were thinking rabbit, which was optimistic."We wanted more time at the beach before heading back to Istanbul, so we took Lonely Planet's recommendation on "wonderful Kizkalesi," on the Mediterranean coast.HAH.Oceanside architecture so ugly I couldn't even laugh at it. Tacky amusements. Crowds upon crowds of weirdly unfriendly Turkish tourists. (You know how nice we found the Turks everywhere else!) We might as well have been a million miles away from that perfect morning in Butterfly Valley.Anyway, we made the most of it, seeing everything remotely worthwhile in the area--like a really cool floor mosaic of the Three Graces in nearby Narlikuyu, and some nifty clifftop Roman reliefs:"Even if I fell I probably wouldn't die," part two. (Can you see Elliot?) We scrambled down that rock-face to get to the Roman reliefs.We had the reliefs to ourselves, but there were plenty of people to contend with at the Caves of Heaven and Hell. On our descent into "hell" we found empty water bottles strewn along the path even though there were trash bins at regular intervals. (Leads one to wonder if there's a special circle reserved for jerks who don't respect the environment.) Elliot remarked, "If there is a heaven, who cleans it up?"At the mouth of the cave is the ruin of a Byzantine church:The ghost of a fresco in the apse, destroyed through the elements plus human idiocy.We got up early one morning and swam out (200 meters) to Maiden's Castle, and wandered over the ramparts in our bare feet. There was plenty of graffiti on the walls, and the smell of urine in dark corners, but it was a glorious morning and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.Istanbul, reprised: the next and final installment!