Wanderung 19

Meandering the Mediterranean

Cruising the Eastern Mediterranean

April - May 2009

Tuesday, April 28th, 2009: Ephesus, Turkey

Bob:

This was a day for ruins, ruins, and more ruins. In fact, we spent so long at several different archeological sites with remnants of past civilizations that we were lucky the entire day wasn't ruined! Whooo, boy! Ahem.

We started the day driving up the coast from our port of Kusadasi a short distance to the site of ancient Ephesus. There we walked maybe a half a mile down the main avenue of ancient Ephesus that leads from the temples on the top of the hill down to the old sea port area below. We followed that ancient avenue, walking on stones that had been sitting there thousands of years, which is a humbling thought when we humans only live 70 to 80 years on the average. Along the way we passed several temples and statues.


 

The road ended at the site of the ancient library at Ephesus. Although only the facade has been reconstructed, that section was sufficiently large and ornate to give us a decent idea how the library might have looked in ancient times. A short branch road took as over to a large outdoor theater that in its time would have seated up to 2400 people. Legend has it that St. Paul, the suddenly converted stoner of Christians who so dramatically flipped religions, tried to preach his new religion in that theater. But he ended up just causing a riot among the populace and was taken for his own safety to a nearby lighthouse, the site of which can still be seen today.

Our tour of Ephesus ended ended with a short play designed to use some historical themes to entertain us tourists. A Roman general, probably Marc Antony, entered to much fanfare and then a woman with Nubian slaves who probably represented Cleopatra entered to join him up on a royal dias. Then we had a session of entertainment by a trio of dancing girls in gauzy costumes, a mock fight between two gladiators, and a combination juggler and fire-breather. I very much doubt the play's historical accuracy, but it certainly was an entertaining performance and brought a little life back to the staid, old ruins of Ephesus.

As we left Ephesus I bought some post cards from a sidewalk vendor, but Monika started looking at some nice embroidered blouses in one of the shops at the exit. She made the mistake of asking "How much?" and the proprietor quoted an outlandish price of 60 Euros. Since that was way too high, Monika said "No thanks" and turned around and walked out of the shop. The proprietor grabbed the blouse she had been looking at and followed her down the sidewalk, hassling her with lower and lower offers: first 50 Euros, then 40 Euros, then 30 Euros. She kept walking and by the time she reached the re-embarkation point for our bus the proprietor was still dogging her heels and had finally come down to 20 Euros. That was actually a fair price and she almost turned around and bought the blouse, but she was so tired of being hassled at that point that she didn't want anything more to do with him and just reboarded the bus. I watched in amusement as the proprietor turned around to get back to his shop, no doubt a bit frustrated at losing a sale.

Our next stop was Magnesium, a place where they quarried magnets according to our guide (I remained dubious about that claim: the area didn't look right for mining.). The site wasn't nearly as excavated as Ephesus, but we still saw the top of a temple poking up out of the surface and a large, open area that our guide said would be the agora or marketplace in ancient times. A latrine complete with toilets and channels for running water was one surprise; the only other place I had seen something like that was at ancient Pompeii.

Our third stop was the huge theater at Miletus. The front columns had fallen and were littering the ground like a forest of petrified trees, but the basic bowl of the theater was intact and it was simply enormous. Some of the theater had been reconstructed in modern times but most of it had apparently survived intact from ancient times due to the surrounding land being mostly marsh and swamp, which inhibited the use of the ruin as a quarry. Some of the seats still had the initials of the owners carved into them. However, some marble rock had been quarried from the old theater in the early Islamic period to construct a nearby mosque and a caravansary or way station for pack trains traversing the Silk Road.

Our final stop was the Temple of Apollo at Didim. Quite a bit of work had been expended to excavate the basic structure and re-assemble many of the original columns, which were absolutely huge, by the way. Enough of the original colonnade had been reconstructed that we could get an idea of how the temple might have looked 2,000 years ago. We also saw the site of where the oracle sat and gave out her pronouncements and saw the channels inside the joined faces of the column sections where molten lead had been poured to help lock the pieces together.

Quite weary by that point, we had lunch at a nice restaurant right next to the temple before returning to Kusadasi. The trip back was through beautiful countryside and small villages each with a unique mosque. But once back in Kusadasi we were forced to endure a presentation on Turkish hand-knotted rugs before being let go for the day. We tried shopping at a bazaar on our way back to the ship, but we were so hounded by the salespeople whenever we stopped that we ended up fleeing back to the port shops inside the security zone. There with clearly marked prices and low-pressure salesmanship, Monika finally relaxed enough to actually look at the merchandise. She ended up purchasing two beautifully embroidered long sleeve cotton blouses for 25 Euros.

As we walked back into the terminal on the wharf I found a sign for an internet cafe on the second floor. Although the price was a bit steep, 2.50 Euro for half an hour, I signed on just to check email before we re-embarked. Our ship eased out of port shortly after 5:00 and we tried to find something to eat as we were too tired to eat in the dining room, but we found that the Windjammer buffet line was closed until 7:00 p.m.! For a minute or two I thought we actually would not be able to eat dinner at all, an almost unimaginable fate on a cruise ship. But we kept exploring and found we could still get hamburgers, hot dogs, and French fries on Deck 9 just outside the health salon (a curious placement, to be sure). So we ended up with hamburgers for dinner, after which I spent the evening working on the journal while Monika attended the Captain's reception for Crown & Anchor society members where she had two glasses of free champagne. And so to bed.

Copyright 2009 by R. W. Holt and E. M. Holt
Index
Prolog Map of Transatlantic Cruise Map of Northern Italian Bus Trip Map of Eastern Mediterranean Cruise

April 2009
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12 13 14 15 16 17 18
19 20 21 22 23 24 25
26 27 28 29 30
May 2009
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10 11 12 13 14 15 16
17 18 19 20 21 22 23
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