HAPPY 30th ANNIVERSARY to us!
Arrived in the port town of Kusadasi around 7 a.m. We had a tour planned to see Ephesus, just 30 miles north of the port. So after breakfast in the room, we met our group for an 8 a.m. departure.
Ephesus used to be a busy port city in the Aegean Sea, but is now land locked due to large silt deposits which dammed up 4 miles of the river over a period of 3,000 years.
We passed through farm lands which mainly grow cotton. The local men mainly work in agriculture while the women weave. We did see some olive trees growing as well. In addition, mulberries grow here which is important to the silk trade. Silk worms eat the mulberry leaves. One cocoon produces about one mile of silk! Unlike the yellow silk in China, this is a pure white silk. The silks are also dyed naturally with herbs and other natural vegetation.
Saffron also grows naturally in this area, so it can be purchased rather cheaply. It is used also for its golden color in the angora products produced here.
Ephesus is the Aegean Sea’s best preserved ancient city. What I hadn’t realized was that much of it has yet to be uncovered. It was a city of 250,000 people and much of city is still being excavated today. So, it is an ongoing project, and you could come back in five years and find more to see!
Our first stop was to see the house where Jesus’ mother, Mary, is said to have lived the last years of her life.
The site has officially been declared a Catholic shrine after Pope Paul VI visited it in 1967. We stood in line for 45 minutes to get into this little two-room stone house where two guards made sure we went through in less than a minute. Jesus had told St. John to take care of his mother in her later years, and since St. John was said to have been in this area, it made it more likely this is where Mary lived. The house has been restored, but on the outside you could see the new stone from the original.
The best part of this house is the area around it – very green with lots of trees and up on a hillside, so it remains cool when the rest of Ephesus is very hot. It would have been very peaceful without the hoards of people!
Outside the house there are springs which are now considered to be “holy water.” Also, there is a “wall of wishes” where people come, write out their wish and attach it to the wall. We saw one written on a luggage tag!
The highlights was our next stop down the road at the ruins of ancient Ephesus. We started at the gate at the top of the hill and made our way down the marble road.
[If you click on these photos, they should enlarge so you can see them better!]
There are lots of pieces of stone, etc. that are laid out waiting to be put together in the restoration process of the buildings. In the stone and marble streets, you could tell the original by the marks left by the ancient chariots.
On one piece of stone, there was a relief of winged victory. In the gown, there is the curve in the skirt that Nike uses for its icon.
In Greek, “niki” means victory, thus Nike’s use of the symbol for its shoes, etc. It was neat to see this!
The highlights were Hadrian’s Temple with the relief head of Medusa on the top of a porch which meant it would protect the city from its enemies.
Right before the bottom of the hill, reconstruction work was being done on the hillside, cliff houses. Our group was too large to go through the narrow walkways, but it would be interesting to see how the rich lived back then.
At the bottom of the hill was the Celsus Library with its restored facade.
As you can see, there were huge crowds in Ephesus the day we were there.
It is currently two levels high, but should be three. It is very impressive in its detail stone work and size.
Scroll manuscripts were kept in this building. From here there was an underground tunnel with led to the city’s brothel. Only parts of the brothel can still be seen, but none of the tunnel.
From here you go through another gate to the Great Theater which held 25,000 people.
It too is under restoration, so we couldn’t go up into it, but had a great spot for pictures of it. From the top of it, you can see just how far down the archaeologists have had to dig to discover this ancient city.
After leaving Ephesus, we went by bus back to Kusadasi to see the famous Turkish rugs and a demonstration of how they are made. It is very labor intensive, and the women weave them in their homes and then sell them to the local carpet stores. We visited the Harem carpet store which is the outlet store for the largest weaving school. They only allow the women to weave two hours a day because any more than that will cause their hands to develop calluses, and then they would not be able to feel the knots of the material they are weaving (and w9uld make more mistakes). After watching how they are made, the high price for these handmade pieces of art is much better understood. We were served their local hot apple tea which was very good and tasted like apple cider.
Our guide recommended a restaurant across the street from Harem and close to the ship for lunch. We joined another couple we had met (Zach and Marlene) and had a kebob lunch (one lamb, one turkey) and all agreed it was not at all well prepared. Very disappointing.
We did a little shopping at some of the little stores near the ship. One of the items you see a lot of here is the “blue eye” which can be made into jewelry or just a hanging decoration. It is said that if you have it, it will reflect what you are wishing for the person you are seeing whether it be good or evil wishes.
Back on the ship, I went to the Turkish bazaar where the ship was selling some of the typical Turkish souvenirs. Also went to a cooking demonstration hosted by the ship’s entertainment director (who is not a chef!) where she showed us how to make simple appetizers. I picked up a recipe card for a dip I’ll try out at home. It was not an Amsterdam experience!
The day ended in great frustration as we spent four hours trying to get our computer signed on to the ship’s server. We went between two of their tech experts, and finally got it going. But it caused us to miss dinner, so we had pizza and pasta in the Lido at 9 p.m. We decided to celebrate our anniversary another night!
No comments:
Post a Comment