We walk to the ruins of two ancient cities, Appollonia and Aperlae. Both are in fairly remote locations, and we are the only people there. At Aperlae there are fragments of pottery and carved marble scattered across the site. Previous visitors have picked up some of the more interesting looking pieces and arranged them on the walls for others to look at. It's a great experience, exploring these sites that were inhabited 2500 years ago, and finding the creator's thumb print marked on a piece of pottery. The signs around the Aperlae site state that it gained its wealth as a major manufacturing site of..... the colour purple! They harvested thousands of one particular type of shellfish, smashed them open, and used the contents to dye fabric purple. For many centuries this was the only way to make purple fabric. So purple fabric was a fabulously rare, and expensive, commodity; and Aperlae became a wealthy city on the basis of shellfish guts. If people had been willing to settle for either blue or red fabric, Aperlae may never have existed.
Fifth century BC Cubism at Appollonia.
Aperlae, the sort of walls that only purple can buy.
We camp out in an isolated olive grove six kilometers short of our next destination. In the middle of the night a bunch of wild pigs turn up and hold a porcine party next door. I yell at them to get them to keep the noise down; the inconsiderate.... well.... pigs.
Camp Get Down Tonight, with me modeling the Rasputin look - which is gonna be huge this year - just remember that you read it here first.
Today's tortoise count : 1
and 2 snakes - Fiona is not happy!
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