A Visit to Ephesus and a Wonder of the Ancient World!

Sunday, April 29, 2012

Hello!

Oh, boy, these old legs are certainly getting in to shape quickly!! Ouch!
Woke up about 7 a.m. after a great night’s sleep. I am hopeful that our “sleep bank” is getting recharged! Showered and down to breakfast in the garden courtyard by 8 a.m. Just yummy! First they bring baskets of very good French-type bread, along with a spread of olives, jams and honey. Then you get a plate of fresh fruits and vegetables as well as some amazing feta cheese. (I have been told that as I like the cheese so much, I just need to ask for more tomorrow…which I plan on doing!) There were tomatoes that tasted like tomatoes should taste, as well as strawberries that are red all the way through (unlike they are in Tucson, where they are white…). Then you are asked how you would like your eggs: scrambled, omelet, or fried. (One lady tried very hard to explain an egg white-only omelet, and was completely unsuccessful!) I had the eggs scrambled, and they came out in a lovely little dish, beautifully prepared with cheese – they were GREAT! R had coffee and I had cold milk.

Nazmi, our friend from yesterday, showed up just as we were finishing, and in just a few minutes we were being chauffeured to the top gate at Ephesus to be dropped off! We opted for the audioguides, and to be honest, the ear pieces were TERRIBLE. They had little ear pieces on each one that are supposed to slide over your ear…impossible to deal with; finally we both just took them off! (If we do this again, I am going to have my ipod earphones with me.) Even though we got there by 8:30 a.m. (opening time is 8:00 but we really wanted breakfast!) there were many, many people already inside. (Brucato rule: BE THERE WHEN IT OPENS!)

Nazmi had given us a really good hint – go to the terrace houses, because no tour groups ever go there – and it was wonderful! The Austrians had (and I think continue to) excavated a certain section of Ephesus, and have provided a wonderful covered area to preserve the frescos and mosaics found within the houses; amazing! We climbed up to the top of the excavation and had the place literally to itself! Yipee!

Did the complete walk-through of the site – even managing to avoid other tourists in some other places – and finally exited a little before noon. The bookshop at the exit called Nazmi for us, and in literally five minutes, he was back to pick us up. He did mention lunch, but we were both very hot and sweaty (wearing jeans is NOT a good idea when the temperature is going up into the 80’s!) and asked to be returned to the Hotel Nilya.

Poppies are even redder than the Flanders poppies, if that is possible, and have a larger black center; very beautiful!

We both hit the bed about the same time, and there wasn’t another word for about two hours – we were both unconscious! Ah, jet-lag! I finally rousted R out of bed about 2 so that we could walk down the hill to the Ephesus Museum. It’s literally five minutes from the hotel. Nice walk, and a really lovely small museum! We are noticing that signage and explanations are usually in three languages: Turkish, German and English, which makes it nice for being able to know what we’re looking at! Wandered through the museum – it has a large open courtyard area that is divided into display area as well as information on earlier times – a blacksmith, a barber, as well as a rose water shop. Apparently rose water is very popular in Turkey, and this place explained how it was made in the days before mass production; very interesting! We sat for a bit in the nice little café at the museum, me with my Magnum Classic (Bob & Kate: Did you know Magnum is now making a Magnum with pistachio?) and R with water; we seem to have missed lunch, but as neither of us are hungry…must be that good breakfast!

Interesting signs we have passed...

From the museum we headed down the block to what remains of the Temple of Artemis, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. In a word, unfortunately, not much … whoops, sorry, that’s two! Apparently once the temple was damaged by earthquake in the distant past, people started using the stone for building other things. There is only one re-assembled column left, and part of another. But the standing column has – guess what? – a stork nest built on top of it! There were also storks flying over the large field; so beautiful to watch, and unlike the Sandhill cranes (whoops – call to prayer coming…would love to record it for you!) who fly in HUGE flocks and are incredibly noisy, these are single flyers and I haven’t heard them making any noise at all!

From the Artemis Temple we walked back to the hotel and had cups of tea (R regular, apple tea for me) in the courtyard. R now soundly sleeping, me blogging as I don’t want to mess up sleep tonight!

I did want to share a couple of observations about our trip so far. First, the people here are really warm and friendly. The smaller school kids we pass always say “Hello” – we don’t know if this is the only word they know in English, but we try to respond in kind. Many of the ladies are wearing headscarves, but many of the others are not, so hard to determine the religious feel of the neighborhood. The calls to prayer are fairly frequent – I think 5 times per day … and as we got into bed last night, I remember saying: “I hope the first call isn’t too early!” -- and it was, about 5:15 a.m. but we both just listened for a moment and fell back to sleep. Additionally, there are charms to ward off the “evil eye” everywhere, sometimes even imbedded in the cement in front of shops, and we have seen several older gentlemen with their worry beads working away. There are some fairly persistent “hawkers” at the entrances to sites and museums, but they are always polite, even when told NO. (Although we ran into one who said, after our refusal: You’re breaking my heart! I replied that I was sure he would recover!)
We still have more to see here in Selcuk tonight, and tomorrow we are getting in the car and heading out to explore the ruins of Priene, Didyma and Milos. So…more later, I’m sure, when we get back from dinner! Oh! Not sure if I mentioned it, but we were able to get wine (or anything else, I’m sure, from the collection of bottles!) last night for dinner; a very good dry white!

Lots of love!

m
xxx