Peter Sommer Travels Blog
Welcome to our blog!
Since 2011, this is where we provide extra insight and information about our expert-led cultural tours and cruises. Our blog posts complement what is available on our main website and in our brochures – they offer examples of the fascinating stories and ideas, the lovely flavours and sights, the extraordinary experiences that we share with our guests on our tours.
Our posts cover a wide variety of topics and are in various styles: articles about archaeology and history brought to you by our tour experts, tour diaries, news from excavations and museums, recipes, reading suggestions, updates on our new itineraries and much more – it’s all here for you to discover and enjoy.
After browsing some of our posts, why not take a look at our range of expert-led archaeological tours or gulet cruises, or get in touch so we can help create a wonderful private tour just for you.
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Floral vases: a very short story from Akrotiri, ca. 1600 BC A conical vase of simple shape. Along with some stripes near top and bottom, a few flowers are the only decoration. Apparently painted quite casually and simply in white, they ... Read More
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Sidyma in Lycian Turkey: An off the beaten track archaeological gem A truck parked on the overgrown steps of a long-gone portico, goats scratching themselves on the doorway of an ancient grave, a Greek inscription built into the wall of a ... Read More
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Symi in the Dodecanese islands of Greeece and her Neoclassical Houses The harbour town of Symi is – as we often state in our brochure and on our website – widely regarded as one of the most picturesque in the Greek ... Read More
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An ancient graffiti gaming board at the temple of Apollo at Didyma in Turkey At first sight, what you see is simple enough: some basic shapes roughly carved into a slab of stone. It looks hardly like a work of art, but just like ... Read More
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The Castle of Panteli on Leros: walls, vistas and worship A series of crumbling medieval walls, perched high above a deep blue sea, overlooking a fascinating scenery of coves and bays, a dense jumble of ornate mansions and distant shores ... Read More
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A 16th century English tourist in Istanbul Sir, considering the goodnesse of your Nature which is wont kindely to accept from a friend, even of meane things being given with a good heart, I have presumed to ... Read More
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An ancient golden myrtle crown from Pydna in Greece What you are looking at is an extraordinary piece of ancient craftsmanship: a wreath or crown made entirely of gold, fashioned 23 centuries ago so as to imitate a myrtle ... Read More
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Goethe in Sicily: his travels and descriptions Do you know the land where lemon blossom grows? Amid dark leaves the golden orange glows. A gentle breeze drifts down from the blue sky, still stands the myrtle, and ... Read More
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Italian Lemon Cake: a Zesty Treat Among my earliest memories of travel is how fascinated I was with first seeing lemon trees richly bearing fruit while on a trip to Greece. For me, still a toddler ... Read More
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Herakleia by Latmos: Ancient marvels in a monumental setting in Turkey Have you ever heard of Kapıkırı? Almost certainly not: it is a small, poor and quite ramshackle village of a few stone houses, a few kilometres off the main road ... Read More
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Interactive archaeology online: Bringing the past back to life At Peter Sommer Travels, we are constantly engaged in making ancient monuments accessible and approachable to our guests, usually in a fairly hands-on manner, by "bringing antiquity back to life" ... Read More
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A Roman statue of Aphrodite from Perge in Turkey: Love and War What are we looking at? A mostly nude marble lady with no head, holding a shield. In other words, just another typical piece of ancient sculpture: doesn't that form of ... Read More
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The Secret History - hidden corners of Athens in Greece Last November, travel journalist Dana Facaros joined our guides in Athens for a press preview of our Exploring Athens tour. She appears to have enjoyed it: her text appeared in ... Read More
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Sir Francis Beaufort describing Bodrum in 1812 It seems generally agreed that Bodroom occupies the place of the antient Halicarnassus: and a more inviting, or convenient situation could hardly have been selected for the capital of the ... Read More
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The statue of Zeus at Olympia: an Ancient Wonder in Greece Look at these. Not very impressive, are they? Just some flat pieces of baked clay, about 30cm (12”) or so across, sort of wavy in the middle and surrounded by ... Read More
