Toula Pithagórion

To wander through a place that held such significance in the past, and has references in the Bible. What a strange feeling to be in this kind of place. To walk along the same streets that some of the apostles walked. To read through the book of Acts and know that many of the instances mentioned happened in this place.

Beyond the historical significance, it was interesting to see that this was a real place ...

... 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 ...

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 ...

(Steve)

Turkey was an interesting place. Friendly but quite pushy, the merchants literally stood in the street and tried to herd us into their stores, acting as if you were rude for not looking at their wares. We had pre-booked an excursion to see the ancient ruins at Ephesus that was well worth it considering the out of the way location and the commentary of our guide. Once built near a bay and an important trade route, silting turned ...

Ephesus Here's another ancient city, much like Pergamum with very interesting ruins. Originally this housed the Temple of Artemis, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World (3 of the 7 were in Turkey!). Some of the sights that are still here: * A monument to Nike, Goddess of Victory - I got a picture with Adam wearing his Wallabies jersey here for good luck * A theatre that could hold 25,000 people! It's still used today for classical music concerts, Gokhan went once ...

... the Sahara desert is warm. A fine sandy dust coated the boat all the time. The solar panels needed frequent washing. Sadly, Khios marina, whilst free of charge, is filled with rusting ferries, fishing boats etc and has no water supplies so we had to get water from a garden hose, hauling our little trolley and two 5 gallon containers about 400 metres from the marina across tracks that would have made a great 4 wheel drive off road training course. It is certainly ...

... 305;ng under the thatch discussing world problems, drinking Turkish tea. We bought a local beer, Effus, and relaxed in the shade. İ purchased a local wine before boardıng the bus which took us to the airport. We said good bye to our host, gatherıng hıs 'hotmaıl' email address and his street address-giving him a Celebrity Attractions pen for which he seemed to be excessively thankful. Ferhat is a math teacher ...

... wine is really rather good and starts at around €3.00. This marina is one that sat almost complete but semi derelict for many years before opening last year. It is a typical Greek marina which, after many years of development and dereliction, was opened last year and is now run very well indeed. It sits below the lower lying hills on the eastern end of Samos and has the Turkish mountains looming above it on the other side of the Samos strait. It is one of ...

... Mary as a religious figure as well. I give the house of the Virgin Mary a flat 5 out of 10. I don't know if I buy the whole vision thing. Ephesus - the Roman Ruins Now, after my sleepy haze, we went to the ancient city of Ephesus. Apparently this was the third rebuilding of Ephesus, when the Romans came. Version 1 and 2 were built by the local Turkish people. Now from the road, I thought Ephesus was maybe a building or two, and what looked to be like a theater. After ...

... of time off our journey (cos we wouldn't have to be stopping at every red light right the way through the city - which was the alternative route). Unfortunately the ring road hasn't yet been finished, but luckily it was only the very north end that we got to first that hasn't been completed and we were able to get onto the rest of it quite easily after only 10 mins of city driving - we were pretty grateful, cos the 10 mins had been a bit frenetic and we didn't ...