by Christina Brzustoski

Created on: April 19, 2008

The Aegean coast of Turkey is overflowing with ancient Greek cities. In fact, there are so many that the Turkish government chose to flood one of them when constructing its Ataturk Dam simply because, well, there were plenty of others where that one came from. So if you have only a few days to explore, how do you choose between visiting a cool amphitheater at Aspendos or a similarly nice one at Aphrodisias? For those short on time, it's probably best to stick to the "Big Three" cities of Troy, Pergamum and Ephesus.

Troy is certainly the most famous of the three. Some tourists don't even realize that Troy actually exists until they book their tours. There is so much allure and appeal to Troy because of its well-known history. It is quite exciting to visit the set of one of the world's most well-known stories. Unfortunately for us, there is little left to show that Helen, Paris, Hector and Achilles once dwelled here. Apart from an endearingly cheesy life-size replica of the infamous Horse where a photo op is obligatory, all that remains are old foundations, a couple of walls with labels telling you which of the nine layers of Troy it belonged to and a large ramp that was used for chariots entering the city. And alas, historians are sure that this ramp wasn't used to pull the Horse into the city. It's well worth a visit for lovers of mythology and history, people with a great imagination and those who enjoy name-dropping famous places while watching bad Brad Pitt movies.

While Troy is notable for its famous mythical history, the site of Pergamum offers more, er, sights and quite a few interesting tales of its own, told to us by one of the very interesting and knowledgeable guides you can hire independently, or will get on a group trip. As a weary traveler Pergamum lets you take in more of its history without struggling to imagine what it must have looked like in each of its nine different incarnations. There's the Temple of Trajan, albeit in a ruined state, and a breath-taking old theatre that could hold about 10,000 people. It is breath-taking merely in its leg-wobbling steepness. This is where, reportedly, the act of clapping first came into existence. Apparently, the Emperor used to come to see shows here and at the end of the performance, he got first dibs on leaving the place to avoid the gridlock that follows such an event. Unfortunately for the attendees, one Emperor didn't have such a great attention span and used to fall asleep during the performances,

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