Meet at the lobby of your hotel in İzmir or at the airport. The city was a great center of culture and capital of East-Roman-Empire. On the ACROPOLIS there are numerous remains including the celebrated Library, the steepest Theatre of Anatolia, the Temples of Trajan and Dionysos, the place of the monumental Altar of Zeus famous with the relief of God and devils, the Sanctuary of Demeter, the Gymnasium situated on terraces, the lower Agora. After a delicious lunch with Turkish specialties, you will visit the Medical Center of the ancient world, ASCLEPION where the first psychological Treatment had been used and which was dedicated to the God of Health, Asclepios. The tour will terminate in İzmir airport or hotel. (L)

Introductions

Perched atop a windswept mountain along the Turkish coastline and gazing proudly—almost defiantly—over the azure Aegean Sea sit the ruins of the ancient Greek city of Pergamon. Although the majority of its superb intact monuments now sit in Berlin’s Pergamon Museum, enough remains of the acropolis for the visitor to sense the former greatness of the city that once rivaled Alexandria, Ephesus and Antioch in culture and commerce, and whose scientific advancements in the field of medicine resonate through the corridors of today’s medical treatment facilities. Juxtaposed sharply against this image of enlightened learning is that of “Satan’s Throne,” as described by the prophet John of Patmos (Revelation 2:12-13), which some scholars interpret as referring to the Great Altar of Pergamon, one of the most magnificent surviving structures from the Greco-Roman world.