Warning: this will be a short post, just to let you know that I am alive and my trip goes on. And actually to try and catch up with my journey since I am blogging a couple of weeks behind current events... travelling is such a hard work!
While still sleeping in Selcuk, I visited Sirince. This town is famous for its white old houses, which are very well preserved, and it is popular with both foreign and Turkish tourists. The town is very small and can at times feel crowded with souvenir shops but one just has to walk a couple of minutes in any direction to get a real rural feel, with old ladies sitting down at their porches and men working the fields. It was a rainy day, very suitable for killing time in a terrace drinking tea and playing backgammon (the national game) or just sheltering under an umbrella and enjoying the views with nice company.

Among the items that locals were selling, the most popular were some kind of crowns made of dry flowers. Almost every female visitor in town was wearing one and it took me some time to realize they were not members of a hippy sect but had just bought the crowns over there...

When I left Selcuk, I drove to the ancient site of Aphrodisias. Built in order to worship Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love, the archaeological site contains one of the biggest stadiums in the ancient world. It is relatively well preserved and gets few tourists, due to the remoteness of the area.

The column that follows belongs to the 'agora', an open space where people used to gather and socialize in general. There were inscriptions all over the place, this one in particular reads something about Dionysus and has a very attractive texture and color. Perfect for my Nikon D7100 and its 35mm lens.

Next stop will be Pamukkale, one of the pulsating centers of Turkish tourism.
In fact, I was getting a bit tired of the masses in Western Turkey... in this coastal region, there is almost nothing that escapes from the reach of tourist coaches loaded with Europeans and Asians. I kind of felt this is not real Turkey, the exotic country I had in mind, but just one more beach resort area in the Mediterranean. Some sites were impressive but difficult to enjoy with a thousand other people trying to take selfies and blindly following their tour guides.

I guess I will have to wait until I reach Eastern Turkey for a different experience and to start soaking a true Middle Eastern atmosphere. In the process, meeting nice people and enjoying the country's beautiful sights will be more than enough.