There was quite a drop-off after this arch.

Much of the monastery was built right on top of the boulders that littered this area.

A view of the monastery from below, with olive trees.

Great views on the return trip.

In this picture you can see Bafa Lake, and the Temple of Athena in Kapikiri if you view the higher resolution picture (click on the picture below to get it).  We could hear the call to prayer from the village like it was next door!

More great views of the lake area.

The man with the photo had wanted to be our guide up to the monastery, but we had no problem finding it ourselves.  The photo he's holding in his hand shows him, pointing out some prehistoric painting that we'd missed along the way.

Back in Kapikiri, it was time for the cows to go home.

Cows and donkeys are kept right in the middle of ancient ruins.

We had dinner with Christoph Loehr, the German archeologist who's on a 2 month contract here, cataloging the ruins right around town.  It was great to talk to him and ask him all our archeological questions--I wish I'd written them all down!

We took a walk around town to see the ruins of Latmos, which we'd missed.  On the way we saw this typical Turkish oven.

Here's the theater.  Some of the seats and steps were carved directly into the rock.

A great view of Kapikiri and Bafa Lake.

Part of the city wall around the ancient city of Latmos.  I wonder why they used this particular pattern, with the narrow stones and then the broad ones.

The city walls went high up into the hills.  It would have been a really fun hike to go up there and try to follow the walls.

If you look closely, or look at the higher resolution picture (click on the one below) you can see the Temple of Athena and Kapikiri below.

After Kapikiri, we drove up an unmarked side road, looking for other ruins.  Didn't find any, but we did find lots of olive trees, with little stone walls around each of them to prevent the earth from eroding away.

These are the ruins of Euromos, not too far from Bafa Lake.  In this picture you can see both the finished (fluted) and unfinished (unfluted) columns.

The theater was a little tough to find, but we found it.  There isn't much left now, just some seats carved into the rock.

Another one of the unfinished (and un-worked-on) building around here.  This one is outside Milas.

We went grocery shopping in Milas.  Bread is always sold like this, in glass cases outside the stores.

At the market we bought our usual, tomatoes, cucumbers, and apples.  I wish I could pay Turkish prices for fruits and vegetables in the US!  This woman is selling persimmons, which I haven't seen in Turkey before.

Next we went to the ruins of Labranda, which Christoph, the archeologist, particularly recommended.  The views were outstanding.

A wide set of steps leads down to what I think is the First Andron (a men's religious gathering place).

The caretaker/ticket seller had a nice garden right next to the ruins.

Our best guess at what this was is something like a pipe fitting, where a sewage fixture takes a 90 degree angle.