Our trip to Aizanoi on an early spring day way back in 1989 was a great experience.

The place is dominated by an extremely well preserved and photogenic temple. I was impressed by the presence of the remains of an earlier Phyrgian (or Christian?) temple that has been preserved under the foundations of the present temple.

The ancient marketplace has a list of goods sold there and their prescribed prices all carved into marble in Latin! The authorities must have thought that life would never change.

There is a modern but attractive (in its own way) village of Çavdarhisar that coexist among the ancient ruins which is sort of pleasant, in that it shows that empires and cultures may change over the ages but life goes on at its own pace.

All in all, there are few places where the ancient Roman life exhibits an almost natural continuation in a modern environment.

Aizonoi was not a very important city in antiquity compared to other great Anatolian metropolises such as Ephesus which dominated life at their epoch, but the more important places also kept on changing. Compared to these places which no longer exist in their ancient state, Aizonoi is a vibrant and still lively place of antiquity, well worth the visit.