Ephesus - Day 6

Sunday, June 3, 2012 Feast of the Blessed Trinity
We got up at 6:30am because we have a busy day today with a visit to Ephesus, Archaeological Museum, and Mary's House, and the ruins of the Church of St. John.

We got to the gates of ancient Ephesus 15 minutes early and were the first ones to the site.  Amazingly, there were no crowds during the beginning of the tour.  There were no cruise ships in the harbor which boded well for low crowds for the day.  It is unusual to not have a cruse ship at Kusadasi, according to Mehmet.

We were impressed with the immensity of the city and the ruins.  The city that we saw was from the 4th century BC during the Roman Empire and once had 250,000 residents.

Stoics once lived here.  The were intellectual/moral perfectionists who opposed hedonism.  the town hall had officials to keep the eternal light burning.   In Ephesus' private homes, running water, sewer, heating under the floors were present for the upper class.

We could actually picture the activity as we walked through this ancient city.

This might be the entrance to the senate building.  There was a backgammon type board carved into the marble floor just inside the threshold.

Frank and Jean

The road.  There was evidence of wheel cart ruts.

Tile flooring still intact out of doors.  Stunning.  

Again, Mehmet got us here first and so we are standing in front of the library. This library had a double exterior wall to keep the humidity out to protect the parchments.

Carl loving the stonework. Many arches built into the hillside to support the temple that was added.

Ancient WC (ie potties, albeit public)

Interior of a home, flooring mosaic and wall frescos.

interior fresco

 Covered interior of terrace homes, remember, running water, heating, private toilets.  4th century BC, really???

The theatre holds 25,000 people.  St Paul preached here.  Elton John played here. Go figure.

It was poppy season.  Mehmet, could you have arranged anything more perfect than this and the awesome weather and few tourists?  thank you.

Mehmet was a great tour guide and really helped to explain things to us like how the Christians would let each know they were Christians and where they would meet in secret.

This is a circle with four lines intersecting in the center.  It created letters that spelled "fish" meaning Jesus Christ Son of God the Savior.  Making these symbols with a stick in the dirt would let another know who you were.

The city was very important in the history of Christianity.  Paul once lived in Ephesus and wrote letters to the Ephesians that we find in the Christian Bible.   St John and Mary the Mother of Jesus also lived in Ephesus.  Our next visit was to Mary's House where she lived with St John.  Mehmet had us on such a good schedule that we actually made it just in time to receive communion during the 10:30 Sunday Mass.  The site is beautifully shaded and is heavily visited by Christians and Muslims alike.

This home was discovered in the mid 1800's from notes taken by St. Anne Catherine Emmerich who was a mystic and communicated with the Blessed Virgin. In her writings were descriptions of the house and the environs which led to its discovery. The foundation and about half of the walls were intact.  A man from  Ohio paid for the reconstruction.  The site is maintained by the Franciscan order by a decree of the Vatican. It is a very important Shrine to the Christians and the Muslims.

We then visited the ruins of the Basilica of St John where St John was buried.  it was built by Emperor Justinian in the 6th century like the Haghia Sophia.

The entrance

The baptismal font.

Close up of the marker of St. Johns tomb.

St. Johns tomb.

From a corner of the large basilica we could see the ruins of the temple of Artemus (Diana), one of the 7 Wonders of the Ancient World.

After a busy morning we went to a local restaurant in Selcuk called Tat.  Mehmet knew the family well.  Their English was very good as they described the sampling of the typical mezes and Turkish fare to us.  The older brother had a sense of humor as he offered Turkish or Greek coffee to Frank.  Frank thought he would try the Greek coffee (Turkish coffee).  Along the way to the restaurant we saw plenty of storks.

Yum, lentil soup.

These birds are huge!

We then took a short drive to go to the archeological museum to view artifacts like statues, frescoes and statue of Artemis from the Ancient Temple of Artemis (one of the 7 wonders of the Ancient World).  We could only view the one remaining column of the Temple of Artemis from the Basilica of St John.

Emperor Domition  (not a good guy)

Mehmet really outdid himself today.  We had great weather, no crowds, and were supplied with wonderful information on all of the sites.

We then headed back to the hotel for a 3.5 hour break before dinner at a local restaurant at 7:30.  Some of us took a swim in the hotel pool and others took a nap or read a book.  The restaurant had some nice seafood like bream, sea bass, calamari, and shrimp.  We went to bed around 10pm to some lightning.  Carl, Leslie, Margaret and Paul took a nice walk into town before turning in.

Dinner outside under the tents next to the water.  Nice sunset.