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Friday, March 25, 2011

Coracesium & Caves


via Wikipedia
Coracesium of the Cilician Pirates exists only in history books. The city is now known as Alanya and the castle is medieval. I'll come back to the castle for a later post, but I'm following the pirate thread a little further with a search for caves.

Mithraic temple caves would be the best, but they're hard to find, so let's visit some other ones we can tour.

Damlataş: Literally "dripping stone", which is very well illustrated in the picture on the right. It's located near Damlataş Beach and is the most accessible cave.

via Antalya24.com

Phosphorescent cave is supposedly quite beautiful, if you can get to it with a small boat. Then there's Pirate's Cave (left). You need a boat for this one too- and if you're a pirate, you might like to hide yours in there. :) However, nearby Lover's Cave is known as the place where pirates kept their loot.

Lots of boat tours follow the coastline, allowing people to swim in and out of the caves along the way. Pretty cool, but I just hope all the tourism doesn't wind up ruining the place.


via AboutAlanya.com


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7 comments:

  1. SarahMarch 25, 2011 at 6:54 AM

    This is fascinating. Have you been to any of these caves? I hope folks leave them as they are--nothing worse than going to a beautiful place and seeing it littered with garbage. But I'm sure there are more subtle environmental consequences of tourism as well. As you've pointed out, the balance between accessibility and preservation is hard to strike.

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  2. JulesMarch 25, 2011 at 9:27 AM

    We have arguably the longest cave in the world here in KY. and yes tourism took its toll. But I can tell, they sure aren't fun in a power outage :)
    Jules @ Trying To Get Over The Rainbow

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  3. LTMMarch 25, 2011 at 10:18 AM

    those all look really cool! And does the phosphorescent cave glow? That would be neat... :D

    Ever since I saw that movie "The Descent," I've been a little creeped-out by caves (LOL!). But they do look amazing~ <3

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  4. Carolyn V.March 25, 2011 at 10:31 AM

    Wow. We have caves here in our mountains, but not near the water. That is so COOL! I hope tourism hasn't ruined it either, but I would sure love to see those!

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  5. Old KittyMarch 25, 2011 at 10:47 AM

    Oooh I love caves - and caves by the sea are just fab!! These look so amazing!! Dripping stone cave is so just that isn't it?!? I'm intrigued with the Lover's Cave and why it was named so?!?!? Oh to be a pirate of the Capt Jack Sparrow Hawk variety of course!!!

    Take care
    x

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  6. UnknownMarch 25, 2011 at 10:47 AM

    I live near a large cave. It's so cool! The one near my house looks like the first picture. When you tour it, you feel so small inside.

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  7. SouthpawMarch 25, 2011 at 2:18 PM

    I. Want. To. Go. There.

    ReplyDelete

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