Great Journey 🏍 Day 291
First of all, we have quite a mess: I want to go to Bergama. But tell Gerd that we want to look at the origin of the Pergamon Altar, which we had already admired in the Berlin Pergamon Museum years ago.
Of course, he enters Pergamon in the sat nav and looks puzzled and says we won't make it today: 25 hours of pure driving time, about 2300 kilometres.
Okay, that doesn't seem to be it. We keep looking and find out: Bergama is the Turkish name for the Greek Pergamon. And when the excavations took place, they just gave it a Greek one.
So, we reach Bergama, drive up to the castle-mountain, marvel at the excavation site of the former cultural centre of Hellenism. According to legend, the parchment named after Pergamon was invented in this city. We have to believe it, because we can't verify it at the moment.
The view is magnificent, the weather somehow mystical. The thunderstorm we just drove through passes the mountain, but with dark clouds, pleasant wind (also very pleasant at 31°) and bright lightning. The other side of the mountain shines in the sun.
Up here, we now try to imagine where this altar from the Pergamon Museum in Berlin might have been. And once again we realise: no archaeologists have been lost on us. We lack the imagination. And most likely also the knowledge. Nevertheless, in full motorbike gear, we walk quite loftily past frescoes, through arcades and examine the remaining columns semi-expertly.
#bergama #pergamon #alteSteine #tolleLage #BurgBerg #Pergamonmuseum
