The Eternal Flames of Chimaera

"Just a number of small barbeques" he said...

"Near Adratchan, not far from the ruins of Olympus, a number of rounded serpentine hills rise among the limestone, and some of them bear up masses of that rock. At the junction of one of these masses of scaglia with the serpentine, is the Yanar, famous as the Chimaera of the ancients, rediscovered in modern times by Captain Beaufort. It is nothing more than a stream of inflammable gas issuing from a cavern, such as is seen in several places among the Apennines. The serpentine immediately around the flame is burnt and ashy, but this is only for a foot or two, the immediate neighborhood of the Yanar presenting the same aspect as it wore in the days of Seneca, who writes 'Laeta itaque regio est et herbida, nil flammis adurentibus.' Such is the Chimaera deprived of all its terrors. It is still, however, visited as a lion by both Greeks and Turks, who make use of its classic flames to cook kebabs for their dinners."

So wrote T.A.B. Spratt in his 1847 tome "Travels in Lycia, Milyas and the Cibyratis, in company with the late Rev. E. T. Daniel"

Hmph. I think ol' Spratty, like any tourist stuck in a group (no disrespect intended to the poor Reverend) didn't have the time to see this place at it's best. That, or he suffered from a distinct lack of imagination. Maybe even both.

It's not uncommon.  Back in Kas we'd had a conversation with a freshly underwhelmed French traveller who'd told us not to bother. "Just like a number of small barbeques" he said. Then mentioned he'd paid fifteen lira to go with a busload of others who got to spend 40 minutes among the flames. After walking up there in the dark.

Armed with that knowledge, we hired a couple of bikes and rode out there in the late afternoon, completing the long climb up the ancient staircase well before the day's last light. Most folks only seem to spend a short while wandering and taking photos before leaving, but if you take the time you'll wind up with the whole place to yourself before too long. Being up there as the sun sets also gives you the time to explore the ruins of the old Temple of Hephaestus. If you go at night I can't imagine you'll have the delight of finding the delicate remains of frescoes we assumed were painted when the temple was converted to a church.

Maybe the flames do look like a bunch of small barbies now, but if you remember they were once large enough to serve as a lighthouse it's not hard to see why the site deserved a temple. As the evening gets darker and the flames cast their glow more widely, a little imagination should surely conjure the feeling that inspired the ancients to create the story of Bellerophon, Pegasus and the Chimaera to explain how this fire can be.