Libya - 7 October 2010 (1)

Ptolomeia

The Desert

Breakfast was really good.  The help yourself buffet had lots of choice.  Anne told me off for having orange squash and Madeira cake, but the cake was all I felt like eating and I needed the orange squash to take my all my drugs.

Decumanus - Remains of Roman Arches

The hotel was right next to the sea, near to a harbour, so we set off with the sea to our left and some restored Italian buildings to our right.  Mahmoud said that Benghazi had been badly bombed in the war and only a lighthouse was left standing.  It looked a very modern city, but we only saw a small part of it.

On the outskirts of town, we stopped at a supermarket which had some lovely fruit and veg outside.  I bought a bottle of water and Barry discovered that they were selling three litres for just one dinar.  Hearing that, Sue dashed out of the bus to really stock up.

Fortress of Athanasius

Cistern

Then we headed on towards Ptolemaia.  There were roadworks on this section of road too.  At one point we had a very slow diversion through a village, which included driving across patches of bare ground strewn with masses of rubbish.  Another diversion pushed the traffic onto tracks running either side of the new road.  Someone ahead had run out of petrol and blocked the track, so we had a do a U-turn and cross over to the track on the other side.  There were some narrow squeezes when passing oncoming traffic!  Meanwhile, we had virtually finished the crossword in the BBC History magazine with some help from Vic and Barry, so I passed the magazine on to Werner.

              

Villa of Columns

Later on I thought we had reached yet another diversion, but we had arrived at Ptolomeia.  This time, we had a very knowledgeable guide, who had been working on excavations on the site since 1960.  He obviously knew his stuff, but was sometimes a bit dictatorial about where we should stand to take photos.

Villa of Columns

 At first the site looked quite empty, but then we reached the  Monumental Road (Decumanus) and the ruins materialised out of the desert.  We walked down the road, while the guide mostly pointed out the junctions with other roads and ignored the ruins to the right.  We saw some water cisterns at the end of the road.  We turned right and reached a most extravagant villa, the Villa of Columns.  It was really huge and was on two levels plus the roof.  It even had two triclinia (dining rooms): one for summer and one for winter.

Exit from Cistern under Forum

Forum

Then we walked to the forum.  Our guide said that the largest set of cisterns in North Africa lay underneath.  The others went down to see them, but I stopped by their exit.  Disembodied voices emerged from holes in the floor of the forum as they moved around.  I took photos as people emerged.  Our last stop was the Odeon and then there was a long walk back.  There was some seating and a café at the entrance.  The puppies of a dog which Sue had fed on the way in came up to greet us.

Odeon

Cockerell Mosaic in Museum

The site museum was air-conditioned, which gave some very welcome relief.  Our guide explained what the headless statues were and where he had found them.  There were some mosaics, which had been taken from the site too.

Then it was time to eat, making use of the seating outside the museum.  We were beset by puppies and Sue fed them, which encouraged them to stay.  They went into a frenzy when their mother arrived, but she refused to feed them.  I guess she thought they were ready to be weaned.  The puppies were cute, but I was worried about fleas when they started to get very close to my legs.