Turkey Page 3

The Next day I set out for Snake Castel so named for a king that had been named the Snake King. This days drive was in contrast to the previous days drive in that this days drive was all inland, whereas the previous days drive had been along the coast most of the way. My first destination was an old bridge built by the Romans, in most aspects it was rather unimpressive except for the fact that it had been built by the Romans and was still in use and large trucks were driving over it. other that that there was absolutely nothing to see until I reached Snake Castle. The Castle is located at the top of a very steep hill overlooking the surrounding lands. I spent a couple of hours climbing around and through this castle and admiring the work that must have gone into it and its strategic location. Afterward I decided that I should keep driving for a few more hours and see if there was anything else in the direction I was going. I turns out that there wasn't for a very long ways. I drove until I came to the coast again, but by that time it was getting late in the afternoon and I had to turn around and head back tot he base. As I was on my way back I passed Snake Castle again and the sun was setting so I stopped and watched the sun set before finishing the trip back to the base.

My forth and what was supposed to be my last day I had to register to get on a flight and wait to see if I could get on it. Of course I wouldn't know that until early afternoon so I registered early in the morning and spent the day relaxing around the base and did a little shopping at the base exchange. Later that afternoon when I went back to the airport to check if I had made the list for the flight, I was told that the flight had been canceled. I wasn't very disappointed to hear that, so I spent what was left of the afternoon and evening off the base on a street right out the gate, there were several restaurants and shops and more leather goods stores that you could shake a stick at. I decided that it was only appropriate that I should take every opportunity I could to enjoy myself before I had to head back to Uzbekistan. I ended up shopping a bit more and buying myself a leather coat. Then next flight was the next day, and I did end up making it on that flight.




This is the entrance to the uppermost level of the castle, despite the large archway you see in the foreground the actual door is much smaller as you can see by looking to the back left of the entrance.	This chamber was built underground in the uppermost level of the castle, at one point in time there had been more chambers throughout the castle but most of them had filled in over time or crumbled and collapsed.
Looking up at the castle from the base of the hill, its hard to tell in this picture just how steep the hill is, but take my word for it, if you were wearing full armor and carrying a weapon you wouldn't be running all the way up the hill and neither would your horse if you had one.
Snake castle sits atop the taller of two hills and around in all directions for miles the land is nearly flat allowing a nearly prefect view, with the one exception of this hill adjacent to it. A river flows around the bases of the two hills and passes behind the hill we can see here. Much of the land surrounding the castle is farmland due to irrigation provided by the river. With a food and water source so readily available, and terrain so easy to defend its easy to see why this was chosen as a site as a site for such a castle. This is the view from atop the castles upper level entrance over at the next hill.

This is an old roman bridge, I don't really know anything about it except that it was built by the Romans and it was on my tour guide map.	Sunflowers growing in a field near the base of the hill Snake Castle sits upon.
	Much of the terrain I passed in Turkey looked just like this, dry, arid, and rugged.