Ino Village Sámos

H's Notes<br>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. <br>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 ...

Kusadasi was a surprise!! We arrived around noon and left the ship for a quick visit up a windy 1500 foot drive up a cliff to the House of the Virgin Mary which is supposed to be her final resting place. It was a small stone building in the pines and a truly beautiful place. We then drove to the ancient ruins of Ephesis which remains an awe-inspiring city in an amazing setting. Beautiful marble colonnades ...

... couples because apparently we don't look like we have much money to spend on carpets. They were right of course and we were able to slip by the merchants and out into the street. I couldn't find a patch for my backpack so instead of being hassled to buy something, we spent the afternoon on the beach.<br>(Whitney)<br> <br>Ephesus was amazing. Usually, I am not really one for history, but this site was so intact it was easy to imagine ...

A day at sea and some time to catch up a little. We were in Kusadasi, Turkey yesterday. As we have been steadyly moving east, the age of the cities and the sites we visit keep getting older. . In Rome we were looking at buildings constructed anywhere from 200 BC to the second century. As we traveled through the Greek islands some sites like the Acropolis at Lindos (Rhodes) were originally built around 800 BC. Turkey and Iran it ...

... coffee with creamy milk. Feeling a little out of sorts today bit tired after all the travelling and miss everyone back home including dan dan lots and lots. <br><br>Going to go out and have something to eat this evening and then up very early for the ferry to Paros but tomorrow we have booked a 4 star hotel with swimming pool on my fave Greek place Paros its so cool so excited about going there tomorrow.<br><br>

... to watch the match in glorious sunshine this is the life its great here and so pretty I could stay forever and chill out. <br><br>After we popped back to get changed and then went for some meze it was amazing first meze of the trip and we ate loads after a walk along the beach off we went to bed again we are moving on tomorrow into the town as we need to get up for the 7am ferry so need to be closer to the harbour.

... and I had a greek meat plate yum yum. After food we went for a walk along the shore this area has strong winds in September called Meltimi that make the waves really high like being in Cornwall so we were sat watching them when we saw either a shooting star or an UFO we are still not sure what it was it kind of fluttered in the sky for a bit then shot off convinced it was aliens!!!! Anyways after that experience off to bed before they try and come and get us.

... the Library though because it was built as a memorial tomb for some dead important person - like an Emporer or maybe his Dad. As you can tell we haven't been taking the history too seriously. We are finding the architecture really interesting though. Cameron keeps noticing things like drainage systems and doorways. Meanwhile I was picking a bush tick off a stray Ephesus kitten. And so ends another day in the busy life of Cameron and Jillian...

Today we toured the ancient ruins of 3 Greek and Roman sites in Turkey: Ephesus, Miletus, and Didyma. We pulled into port fairly early in the morning (around 7:00 AM), so we caught an early breakfast at the buffet and met up with our tour group around 7:15 AM. We were assigned to "lollipop" #12, which we followed around for the rest of the day (a round sign held up by our tour guide). We disembarked from the ship, past ...

... Isis and Serapis (they did a lot of God swapping in the old days). Sadly apart from very high thick red walls there is not a great deal to see, all the statues have been smashed or removed. It does have a prescence though, I 'felt' slightly ....I think the best word for it is cautious, here. The building was Christianised at a later date by building a church within its walls. That is no longer there but there is a mosque attached to the outside. In the Bible, St. John, Chapter 2 ...