And finally, what’s wrong with this picture?

My answer: the lack of tourists.

Turkey is a land of wonders, or rather, I should say, of discoveries for us. Asia Minor is a large territory in which life was comfortable and civilized for centuries in a row, with abundant commerce between East and West allowing for vast cities to be built and trade routes to spread.
Here is Laodicea. Following a by-now-familiar pattern, it reached 100,000 inhabitants and was destroyed in one of the many earthquakes that the area suffered between 200 and 500 AD. Excavations are just a few years in the making here, and although Laodicea has a lot to show, it is not yet on the tourists’ radar screen. We were the only visitors that morning. It was amazing to see such ruins undisturbed by other curious visitors.