Hotel Sirince Evleri Selcuk

... locals did their weekly shopping was refreshing. But even when we started looking for clothing there were calls from the shops and pushy sales tactics.

Here's looking forward to moving away and seeing some 'real' Turkey again.

We had a great time going through the museum and seeing some interesting sites. As well, the food's still amazing here and we've had the chance to sample many different dishes and even try some raki!

... homes and gardens and finally made it to Ephesus. Ephesus is an ancient city. Actually, there are five cities called Ephesus, but we visited Ephesus #3. It was founded by Amazons from the Black Sea area and was named after Queen Apasa, which means Bee. St. John wrote portions of the bible here and died here.
We all piled out of the bus and started through the ruins. These were buildings and columns and roads and temples, most from the 2nd century BC. It was ...

... ship and decided that this town was rather cliche. It had cafe's, fancy restaurants and dressed up tourists which meant I could be anywhere in Western Europe. I hit the gas and sped up the hill back towards my origin. I dumped the bike
back at the shop, had some dinner and retired to the hostel for my final night.
After a few hours working on my journal and this blog, I walked over to the bus station and bought my return ticket ...

H's Notes
We woke to find ourselves mooring in Kusadasi. Our tour to Ephesus had been planned for the afternoon so we took ourselves off for a walk along the seafront and out to Pigeon Island which gives Kusadasi its name.
The tour to Ephesus was quite stunning and the ruins were far more extensive than we had ever envisioned. According to our guide Ihsan who was born in Greece but who has lived in this area for over 30 years, only a quarter of the Ephesus complex has been ...

... br>
Met up with trace, dave, ray and terry who got in around 6:30... YAY!!! went out for an awesome dinner at this kebab place Gazientep. it was delish. then went out and had a nargile (the water pipe thing) and chilled out for the night. YAY! so fun to see friends.

Next day went out to the ruins at Ephesus. They were really cool.

... pilgrimages flock to.

Just like other ruins in this area, all the buildings, including the streets and fountains that visitors can see in the site are all re-constructed. The job was done pretty well, though, so with some imagination ones can get a feel for what life was life back then. The Great Theatre is really great; it could take on 25,000 people. When I was there a lady was reciting a speech at the stage at the bottom of this amphitheatre (she said she just wanted to ...

... be seen from the hotel terrace! The Bella Hotel is across the street from the historic St. John the Baptist Basilica, so visiting it was easy. It is here that a 4th century tomb was believed to house his remains, so Emperor Justinian erected an enormous church on top of his tomb. Apparently, St. John visited Ephesus between AD 37 and 48, with the Virgin Mary, and again in AD 95, when he wrote his gospel near the end of his life. The local museum ...

... a road that the GPS recognized.

It was beautiful country I was driving through, mountainous and sunny. So the drive wasn't bad at all. I finally got back to Selcuk at just before 7:00 p.m. ready for dinner.

Fortunately, tomorrow is a lighter day and all things right here in Selcuk. I've also got to get ready and organized for my departure the next day. Yes, Sunday I leave here for Athens.

my tour plan got swtiched around and i ended up seeing the ruins of priene, miletus and didem today. i'll see ephesus tomorrow, which i think is good, because these three ruins would probably have seemed pretty bad after seeing ephesus. the tour was good; we had a small group and a good guide. in their haydays the cities of priene and miletus were more than 100 000 people ...

After spending the night on a shiny new yet uncomfortably warm coach from Istanbul I arrived in Selcuk on the Aegean coast. I am now accompanied by Wayne, a slightly racist but very friendly Zimbabwean I met in Istanbul, who is now living in London. Close to Selcuk is Ephesus, where there are some of the best preserved ruins in the world of an ...