It should be shocking that we slept basically all day yesterday (off and on of course) and all night last night, AND STILL struggled to get up this morning.. But that’s what happened. We had to get up an hour earlier than the last 2 mornings because our tour meeting time was at 7:45 instead of 8:45.
We managed. We got to our breakfast spot to find out they open at 7:30.. soooo, we went to the 10th floor to eat the buffet breakfast instead. They had biscuits and gravy! I was SOOOO happy! Until I ate a bite-whew. Those were some hard ass biscuits. We ate them anyway, but my hopes got way too high.
We met our tour group and went to the bus. Today was a biblical Ephesus tour. The first stop: the home of the Virgin Mary. Our tour guide, Volkan (real name) was incredible.. so knowledgeable and informative without being loud or irritating so early in the morning. We went through the house but weren’t allowed to take pictures. It was a small 2 room house and therefore very quick. But it’s neat to say you stepped in the same places the mother of Jesus did.
Once out of the home, Volkan took us into a church on the property and we got to have a catholic mass-thankfully the 20 minute version. Mom and I got the giggles and had to hush each other when we saw the people’s eyes from our group get wide and worried when the priest was breaking the body of Christ bread things for their communion.. that was actually for him-he had small ones for them that didn’t require all the extra touching and breaking, although he did touch each one with bare hands. In the land of covid, it’s crazy how different things have already gotten.
After our service, we got water from the fountains of Health, Love, and Wealth.. three things I don’t mind having in abundance. And then we loaded back up on the bus to drive down the mountainside to the ancient ruins of Ephesus. These ruins have been much more preserved than those we saw in Olympia. Archeologists are still uncovering so so much of the city, everything we saw today is only 20% of the ancient city!
There was a marble road from the beginning of the city that went all the way from the deep valley we were in to the sea at one point.. mosaic sidewalks on each side of that, with such detail I can’t even begin to imagine how long it must have taken them to create.. Roman bath houses at the entrance to the city (Volkan said that was to ensure you were “clean” before coming into the city). The sidewalks used to be lined with shops from merchants all the way down to the huge library. Across from the library was a gentleman’s club and there was a tunnel that led from the inside of the library to the club-so basically men have been up to their shenanigans since the beginning of time.. good to know 🤣
He said Ephesus was abandoned after a lot of people died from Malaria.. the ocean started receding causing swampy lands and mosquitos started running rampant. But the people didn’t realize it was the mosquitos making them sick, they called it malaria meaning “bad air” thinking they air was tainted. So after tons of people died, the rest moved up and out of the valley and into the hillsides.
We got lessons on the different types of architecture and the reasonings behind having certain styles in certain places. Emperors passing through Ephesus had money, so the people would build statues and monuments to inflate their ego, so in turn they’d spend their money in the city.
The Vatican confirmed the religious happenings in Ephesus in the mid 1900s by matching the details from the Bible to the things archeologists found there. Once one of the popes came to visit Ephesus, it became a biblical tourist destination, to where before the town of Kusadasi was more of a fisherman town and rather poor. Our guide said if it wasn’t for that pope (he knew his name of course) in 1965, he’d be fishing and struggling to feed his family today, instead he was leading us around showing us what he loves most about his home town. Beautiful, really.
We were going to watch a play out on by the people that run the ruins, but one of the Roman characters busted his head and was being wheeled out in a wheelchair holding a bandage to his head. Yikes! And another Roman character tried to take pictures (for a charge of course) with everyone that passed him, myself included. Dude, we already snapped those pics! Haha He came over and slinked his arm through mine and so I asked him to lead me to the bathroom.. lol
From there we went to a restaurant at an old train station that now has a rose garden too. It was beautifully set up on a gorgeous terrace. The food just kept coming and coming until I thought I’d pop. My friend from the AT, Poptart, would have been so proud.. I ate the fish that had the bones still in it! I mean, I didn’t enjoy it and after the first crunch when I though I had picked them out and I missed one, I was done-but hey! I gave it my best shot!
The other foods included a garlic cream cheese dip on top of cucumbers, bread and bread and bread, some hummus, goat cheese and pretzels, some type of insanely good soup (didn’t ask what was in it just in case it would freak me out), and then the fish-oh and a salad too! Entirely too much food! There was other random stuff too, like cakes and green beans.. literally so much food I can’t remember it all. Plus wine. There’s always wine.
There was the cutest doggie there, walking around laying under tables and feet.. I went to pet him after he sniffed my hand and came in for a rub-but then he snarled and so I just kept my hands to myself after that Lolol the girl sitting beside mom screamed. She told me later that she was planning to pet him after I did and she screamed so loud because she thought he was going to bite her since her hand was near him, too. I didn’t see her hand down there, but good thing she moved quick, just in case.
After eating and being unable to breathe anymore, we waddled back to the bus to go to our next stop: the ruins of the church built to honor St John the Baptist or the evangelist, I have no clue if those two names are for the same guy or not, but I will say whoever they built this church for was very well loved. It was HUGE! There wasn’t a whole lot of ruins left, but from what was there, it used to be incredible.
His tomb was also there, which was pretty cool. Volkan told us that when they excavated the tomb no remains were there, and that the same thing happened way back when-so his grave site was robbed way before our time. I enjoyed listening to Volkan and his excitement over the history of this area. He spit out facts so quickly but was able to tell everything like a story instead of just fact after fact.
Volkan also showed us an old Mosque from where we were standing at the ruins. He went on to tell us the name of it translates to “the Mosque of Jesus Christ” which is probably the first and only Muslim mosque with Jesus Christ in the name-but it was named after a Muslim leader named Jesus.. but apparently not the same as the Jesus Christ Christians know as the savior-HOWEVER-I say, who’s to say it’s not one in the same? I wish I could retell the story he told us with all the correct details. But alas, my brain can only recall so much. Maybe I need to get put on some Namenda.. haha
After we left the church ruins, Volkan took us to a carpet weaving center. They showed us how they hand spin silk and then dye it. How the “ladies” as they kept calling them, hand wove their carpets and that some take 6-8 months and others are so fine that they take 2-3 years to create. The one girl doing this demonstration looked miserable.. to the point that I wanted to ask her if she was being treated properly. It may sound silly, but I swear that girl was not happy to be there and I don’t know that she really had a choice.
From the demonstration area they took us to a showroom, gave us wine, and then put on a production of having men throw out the rugs for us to see. The second someone whispered to their partner, “oh! That one is pretty!” A salesman was right by her side ready to sell it or “there are many others in different shapes and sizes!” Lolol I enjoyed watching them work and didn’t even get annoyed with their salesmen tactics-I don’t need a rug, let alone a 6 thousand dollar one, so I wasn’t worried that I’d feel pressured in any way.
The way out of the showroom was through a jewelry store.. smooooooth! These guys had a game plan! I personally didn’t think that this would sell or appeal to anyone, mom said they put on the show with the ladies hand weaving then make the rest in the back on machines.. BUT people from our group bought some rugs and some jewelry, too! That night on the boat a lady proudly displayed her 6k one karat ring and told us she got a rug too.. 6k seems to be the going price of all their goodies there! And I’m here to tell you, I have plenty of other things I’d rather spend that kind of money on..
From the carpet weaving place we were taken back to the dock and mom and I went to get an iced coffee from the place by the water from last night. It’s just so beautiful there, I never want to leave! A trip dedicated to Turkey is definitely in my future. We had to be back on the boat by 5:30 for a 6pm leave time. It seemed to come way too fast. We ate in the “fancy” restaurant and the manager, Amor sat us at a pretty window table again. I really like him, I really like that mom spoke up and asked to not sit sandwiched between people.. hahaha
We walked around a bit and sat on the back deck to watch the boat sail through the water at sunset. Then I changed into running clothes and did almost 2 miles around the upper deck of the ship.. there’s a placard that says 6 laps is 1 kilometer.. so 30 laps would be a 5k, which is 3.1 miles.. so I just guessed that 10 ish laps is at least one mile. What I didn’t think about when I started was that my garmin’s GPS would pick up the ship’s speed and not mine-so I wasn’t counting at first (only like 2 minutes had passed).. when it buzzed saying I had a 2:35 minute mile I about died laughing! And then realized i better keep count! It was much more enjoyable than the dread mill.
Anywho-I showered and now I’m happily in bed. We get to Thessaloniki tomorrow 🙂 We have a shorter tour that will take us over the city’s highlights. Which means we don’t have to be ready to go meet for the tour until 1:15.. HELLO SLEEPING IN!! Goodnight 🙂