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.

Pergamum - Day 5

Saturday, June 2, 2012
The first ones up in the morning were Leslie and Belinda who hiked up the hills of the local village amongst the olive groves at 6:30am.  The rest of us got up for 7:30 breakfast but the hotel staff had not woken yet.  Mehmet got them out of bed and within 30 minutes we were up and running with lattes, tea, juice, water and of course wonderful breakfast items.

We are going to be driving for about 7 hours today in our luxury Mercedes Benz tour bus with wifi and electric outlets.  We look like a bunch of news correspondents in a bus with all our gear (iPads, iPhones, laptops, iPods).

Our first stop is the acropolis (means high city) Pergamum (now called Bergama) . one of the 7 Asian churches mentioned in the Book of Revelations (Ephasus, Smyrna, Sardis, Philadelphia, Thyatira, Laodicea) It was a large kingdom from the 3rd century BC.

The first web album was getting unwieldy, so I have added another (let me know if you have problems viewing in the comment section of the blog) https://picasaweb.google.com/106489226857978603917/TurkeyAlbum2?locked=true

Mehmet and Jayhoon

A lovely mid morning stop.

We arrived at the acropolis at 11am and the temperature was lovely, the also weather.   After we entered the city of Bergama we drove to the foot of the acropolis and rode a cable car to the top to tour the ancient ruins.

It was a steep climb.

The second largest library was in Pergamum (the first was Alexandria, the third was Ephesus).  The egyptians stopped sending papyrus and so Pergamum invented parchment (made of goat skin).

This library was given as a gift to Antony and Cleopatra and taken to Alexandria.  Sad to say, that library burned.

The size of the city was estimated to hold 100,000 people at the time of Alexander the Great, as evidenced by the size of the theater.  Mehmet our trusted tour guide led us through the ancient site, explaining what we see seeing along the way.  He seems to have an answer for any question our inquisitive group has.  Thank you Carl for having found him through your previous travels. 

The Temple of Trajan was quite impressive.

Lovely details and so majestic.

Here we are.

Mehmet know all the great spots for photos. These are the tops of columns to give you an idea of how massive the temple was.

The Theater accommodated a very large number of people.  It was built into the a steep hillside.  I took a walk down to the bottom and stood on what would have been the stage and tested it for sound effects.  It seemed to work well according to the rest of the group.

4th century BC (greek style, as the Romans had stage buildings) and held 10,000 people. And there we are! Tom is singing to us from the stage.

This shot puts the hillside into perspective.

A close up of the weathering.

A long distance shot of the theatre.  We were sitting in the shade in the picture above and Tom was at the bottom.  Imagine running that every day.

We saw a Turkish school class from Izmir (Smyrna) taking a class photo in the theater.  After the photo shoot, a classmate got up and began leading the others in song:

The last structure that we saw was the Altar of Zeus.

The longest aqueduct in ancient time was located in Begamum.

Then it was off to a small local restaurant for lentil soup, flat bread and special lamb meatballs.  It was nice to sit out in the shade on the sidewalk.

The best lentil soup of the trip. We also visited a Halva shop, lots to choose from.  Margaret bought plain with pistachios and Belinda bought chocolate and vanilla (of course). Halva is a sesame paste dessert. Leslie added the treats to her ever present "snack bag".  Great idea.

After lunch we stopped at an ATM and then passed through Izmir (3rd largest city in Turkey) on our way to Kusadasi.  We are staying at The Grand Onder Otel which overlooks the Aegean Sea. www.onderotel.com.

We took a swim in the outdoor swimming pool before having buffet dinner at 8pm.

Day 4 - Assos

Friday, June 1, 2012
We had breakfast at the hotel at 8am and then took a short drive 20km to the Acropolis of Assos.  The site is located in a village which is now named Behram Kale.  This is the site of the Temple of Athena dating back to around 500BC.  You could still see an amphitheater built into the hillside.

Amazing, goofy people amoung the ruins.

Margaret, Belinda, Leslie, Frank, Jean, Tom, Mahmet, Paul, and Carl (peeking, in sunglasses)

Viewing the lower city.

This gives one a sense of the enormity of the structure.

Jean fitting right in.

Leslie with the umbrella.  Smart.

The walk up to the acropolis from the village reminded us of our visits to the Great Wall with all the merchants lined up to sell souvenirs or local items such as textiles, jewelry, nuts, spices, toys, etc.  

Wanna look?

We were so early, the stalls weren't all open yet.  You go, Mehmet!

Carl, waiting for the women.  Good boy.

The ladies spent a fair amount of time in a nice jewelry shop and picked out a number of items. The only shop Mehmet suggested that we might like.  We did! A local man making his own designs of gems and silver.

We then drove to have lunch next to the Aegean.  Aristotle had once lived and taught in Assos.  We ate a sea bass fish from a recipe claimed to exist since the days of Aristotle. A few people tried tradition Turkish coffee and it had a mint aperitif accompaniment.  We walked around the town for a little bit and dipped our toes in the Aegean at a resort beach.  It is getting noticeably warmer as we head south.

YAY, shade and beer!

Net fishing is banned May through September, so fish is expensive.  We shared this dish of Sea Bass. Yummy.

Coffee, a cup to mix in your milk or sugar, mint aperitif, and turkish delight.

A fisherman behind us as we ate untangling his net.

A tractor bringing in a load of sticks for the furnaces.

A toe dip in to check the temperature.  Some rocks were collected. Hopefully not the one that was confiscated at the airport. bummer.

We headed back to the hotel and stopped at a olive oil museum.  Everyone bought some olive oil to take back home with them.

Then we stopped at the hotels beach which had just opened for the season.  We took a look around to decide if we wanted to get our swimming gear and come back for a swim.  Many of us decided that a dip in the Aegean would be nice.  We returned with our suits and had a very nice swim.  I'm not sure what the water temperature was but it was cold initially but then became quite bearable. We stayed for about an hour and headed back to the hotel. Yes, it was easy to float.

We had dinner at 7:30pm with many nice mezes, lots of wine, a slice of spinach quiche then the main course was a very nice chicken dish with rice and vegetables.  The desert was a candied type carrot dish with honey. 

The company was great and we had a very lively conversation on religion and politics.  We retired around 9:30 or so as we need to be up for breakfast at 7:30am packed with our bags and we will be leaving for the Pergamum Acropolis further south along the Aegean.