Hydrele Beach Village Hotel Sámos

... with beautiful minarets. Homer was born here. Our guide was a woman named Itek. Unfortunately for her, and us, she was nervous, must have been new at this, and she could barely speak English clearly. But she managed to give us lots of good info as we drove to Ephesus. Turkey is a huge agricultural producer for Europe. We saw peaches, cotton, olive, horse, sheep, corn, greenhouses, tobacco, pistachios, and apple trees. The land is extraordinary, hilly and ...

... He spoke all through the tour about the extensive history of the place with pride and passion.<br><br>The ruins are buried under layers of earth and this process whereby a thriving community gets lost over centuries by being interred is a mystery to us really. The quality of the stonework at Ephesus mirrored that we had seen in Greece and the expertise of the stone workers astonished us. Also the extent of the complex with its way down to what used to be the Aegean Sea until ...

... 1.5 hours when I realised that I couldn't find what supposed to be so beautiful, wonderful, magnificent and mindblowing. Either I just have seen too many other ruined sites to be more approaching or I am just realistic by saying that I was simply disappointed about the helpless appearing heaps of stones beside the theatre and very few remaining facades. <br>But the nearby village of Selcuk was a good place to be anyway - just to find an excuse!<br>

... on them or carried drinks over some of these incredible pieces that took years to make. Once the presentation was over, our host called in his 'associates' and we were effectively cornered by 10 or so Turks trying to engage us in conversation in the hopes that we would buy as many carpets as possible (starting at around $2000 US for the small ones and $6000 US for the big ones). It was quite amusing - they didn't bother us as much as other ...

... very popular in Ephesus because of the religious belief that she was buried here.<br> <br>Mary was believed to have been buried closed to Ephesus in a town called Meryemana. Although theologians believed Mary is buried in Jerusalem, there are some that believe Mary accompanied St. John the Evangelist to Ephesus. So how did they know/find the tomb? This is where it gets a little weird. A German nun from the 18th century ...

The region around Izmir (ancient Smyrna) and Ephesus was a major center of ancient Greek civilization, whose importance continued under Roman and Byzantine rule, when Greek continued to be the spoken language. Since then the area has been supplanted with Muslim Turkish language and culture.<br><br> ~1100 BC - Ancient Greek poet Homer born near Smyrna (Izmir).<br>~1000 ...

... use the bathroom. To my surprise, I found the "teachers" and "students" hanging out having coffee and cigarettes. They looked surprised, but didn't even attempt to continue the charade at this point. After finally getting to the ruins of Ephesus itself, it was amazing. We rented audiotours and Charlie did his best impersonation of Warren from Something About Mary (see 'have you seen my baseball' pictures). The ancient ruins are still in great shape ...

... I mean absolutely amazing detail and 3 stories high. Wow - go Romans! Next stop - the Beverly Hills of the Ephesus. This part was completely covered with a 1 million dollar roof courtesy of a bunch of sponsors. This hill side residence was basically like living in a condominium... huge marble living rooms, communal kitchens, but individual bedrooms complete with custom mosaics, their own kitchen, storage, and security. This is where you'd find the celebrities and Bill ...

Day two of the conference included more police escorts around town and a ferry across the bay to another more modern shopping district. I skipped out on the afternoon tour to watch Aili and Gisela's presentation which went over really well. The next day we woke up ready for the trip to Ephesus - the ancient city first founded in 300 B.C. Many of the ruins from the Roman era still ...

Destination Selcuk once more. The ruins of close-by Ephesus are far too intact and impressive for Renee to miss, plus I'd arranged a final catch up with Kerry and Jez before splitting for the last time. This meant another night bus, and the experience of bus station toilets to contend with- you know it's going to be bad when there are sheets of cardboard outside the ...