14 December ’04, Tuesday. On the road this morning and heading north. We will visit Pergamum at Bergama and then head on. We will have a fairly long drive up to Izmir and then head up the coast about another 45 minutes to Bergama. The last time we were in Bergama, we were with Bonnie and Doug and we needed to find a bank-o-matic…no one had any money and it was dinner time. Well, we found the cash and we had our dinner. Today we have a little money left so we passed the machine and headed for the top of the hill. Pergamum is high on the hill overlooking the valley and Bergama. In the glory days of Pergamum, all the valley area’s now were the sea and sea ports. Pergamum was a large city of about 15,000 people immediately in the city area and many more spread out in the hills below. The site is laid out pretty well, but as far as the ruins… there is very little rebuilt. It does have a fairly large amount of columns standing and they have cross members on most of them. Other than that, you have some foundations, books, information boards, and your imagination. The weather today was sunny, windy and cold as heck up on top. The way were dressed, you would think we were looking at some ruins in the farthest north of Alaska instead of Turkey. The drive back down the hill and into Bergama was really interesting in it’s self. The streets and the roads were very narrow and as we approached the town the buildings came right up to the side of the van. The buildings are very old and give you the feel that there has been a community here for a long time. In fact Bergama (Pergamum) has continually been occupied since 3000 BC. That is a long time… As we pulled into town there is a large brick ruin right next to the road…The Red Basilica. In Revelations, St John he Divine wrote that this was one of the seven churches of the Apocalypse, singling it out as the throne of the devil. It has a hole in the podium in the center which allowed someone to hide and appear to speak through the large cult statue. This was originally a temple to the Egyptian gods in the 2 century AD. Tomorrow…on the road to Troy