Turkey

 Our stop this morning was in Kusadasi, Turkey.  We had arranged a guide here, and I have to say, this tour was one of the best I’ve ever done (the others agreed).  The guide was fantastic, in terms of information and knowledge, but also with flexibility.  “We could do this, or do that…”  She was very patient and accommodating.  And she determined the order of things based on how busy things were.  I have to say, she pegged it all correctly.

Anyway, we started in Ephesus.  This is an ancient Turkish port town (which is now about 8 km inland).  Excavation has been going on here for a long time, but it started with the French.  It’s an incredible site to visit, and here are a few of the pictures from the site.

One of the smaller theatres there…and no, we weren’t performing that day.

Some of the decoration they’ve uncovered.

Of course, the ancient library.  It’s just an incredible structure.

                                                    

This is a carving of the Goddess Nike (you can see the Nike symbol in it.)

And the large theatre where various people and bands have played, including Elton John, Metallica, and others.

And there are stray dogs that are looked after and allowed to “hang out” in various places…just like the cats.  This one was in Ephesus, and not the only one we saw.

Ephesus is really a beautiful site.  It’s absolutely incredible what has been uncovered here.

So after spending a couple of hours here, we moved along - through some shops, of course.  Love the sign here…

We then went up higher in the hills to visit the Virgin Mary’s house.  Interesting story, and they believe it’s true based on certain evidence that was explained to us.  I won’t get into it all here, but you can look it up yourself.

This is an older olive tree along the pathway to the house.

After our visit to Mary’s house, we went for lunch to a traditional Turkish restaurant.  The food was very good, starting with various appetizers, and our main meal was chicken breast, rice, and meatballs (rather flat ones, but that’s OK).  We also had a beer each, as shown below.  It was quite good.

We then visited a Turkish carpet-making place.  They showed us how they made Turkish carpets.  It’s truly amazing how much work goes into it (and why they’re so expensive).  All done by hand.

They also raise silkworms, and harvest the silk.  One worm creates silk that is about 1.5 km long.  Just incredible!  All in a little packet.  Poor worm at the end :(

We then went on to a pottery place.  This guy demonstrated making a piece of pottery.  Just beautiful.  And there were some incredibly beautiful pieces in this shop.

We headed off back to the ship.  It was over 6 hours spent that was incredibly informative and I would highly recommend this tour to anyone.

Tonight on the ship was formal night.  We had missed the information about that, but while Sue and I were sitting in O’Malley’s pub on the ship, we noticed a bunch of people dressed rather formally, so checked into it.  It sure was!  We let Judy and Darlene know, as they were in the spa.

So we headed back to our rooms and got dressed appropriately before heading out to dinner.  While at dinner tonight, we met 3 women from Australia at the next table who were on the trip because one of them was having a certain birthday.  How coincidental!

Off to Rhodes tomorrow.