Today Pergamon is known for the extensive amount of ancient ruins still in tact high on the mountain above the modern day Turkish city of Bergama. In its prime, however, it was known for its great library, considered to be second only to the Library of Alexandria, and its Asclepeion, which was considered to be the greatest therapeutic and healing center in the entire Roman Empire. The Pergamenes were also the inventors of parchment from calfskin, created when papyrus became scarce and the Ptolemies stopped exporting it, and it’s believed that the Library contained over 20,000 parchment scrolls.
In order to reach the ancient city, we had to travel up the mountainside by gondola and then wandered around the ruins, much of which were temples and tributes to the gods, Zeus, Hera, Athena, Demeter, and Dionysus to name a few. There was a lot to see and many, many pictures taken (read: I could have added a TON more, but figured you probably didn’t want to spend 3 days looking through pictures!).
The Epicurious Texan 