Olympos
Though a very ancient city nearby Antalya, in the Mediterranean coast of Anatolia, the early history of Olympus is shrouded in mystery. We know it was an important Lycian city by the 2nd century B.C., and that the Olympians worshipped Hephaestos (Vulcan), the god of fire. No doubt this veneration sprang from reverence for the mysterious Chimeira, an eternal flame which still springs from the earth not far from the city. The town declined in the 1st century B.C. until the arrival of the Romans in the 2nd century A.D. In the 3rd century pirate attacks brought impoverishment. In the Middle Ages, Venetians, Genoese and Rhodians built fortresses along the coast, but, by the 15th century Olympus had been abandoned.
Today the site is fascinating, not just for its ruins that are fragmentary and widely scattered amidst the thick greenery of wild grapevines, flowering oleander, bay trees, wild figs and pines, but for its site, just inland from a beautiful beach along the course of a stream which runs through a rocky gorge.
Chimaera is spontaneous eternal flame burning here since ancient times. You can track it down in Homer's sagas. The source is natural gas/methane and it is burning at the cracks of the rock. You can try to extinguish it, but you won't manage. It is eternal, you aren't.
People bring chorizo (sucuk in Turkish) and wine for long nights and cook chorizo on this fire. But don't! Methane does not taste good. But you can bring wine, just be careful when return.
Do not miss the opportunity to dream by looking into flames under the stars.
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