Day 6 - Epheses & Selcuk, Turkey

To the right - this is the currently closed citadel which we could see from our hotel room.   This photo was taken from the ruins of St. John's Bacilica.

Finally. Stunningly full sunny day! One of our first as it has been unreasonable rainy and cold in turkey this year.


Today we explored Ephesus. You must read about it to get the full understanding of where we were.


 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ephesus


In short, it is an ancient walled city.  In some of its last days, John the baptist brought the blessed virgin Mary to a few times and it is believed it is where they both spent the last of their days.

The architecture and stunning history aside in this blog to spare a horribly written novel,
















we also saw the remains of the first church named after Mary, the original tomb of st john the baptist and later built bascillica on the spot,

 
and the ampitheater where st paul the apostole came to the Ephesians and spoke to them of Christianity. The Ephesians cheered for 3 hours in favour of Artemis. Paul was forced to leave to an island in exile for a while after this.

In Ephesus we also visited the terrace houses which where destroyed by an earthquake and around 1950 started the digging and reconstruction; the completion is many decades off but if I visit here again, I will make a point to see the progress. The money into the marble, frescos, and fully mosaic floors is incredible. The floor mosaics are the largest from such an early time period that have been uncovered.










After our day visiting ruins and sites from BC and ad times, we made our way back to our hotel.
When passing by Denis' bar, our British and Dutch friend were found having a beer. Of course they treated us to one as we sat to chat with them. Before we knew it, we were being taken with both our new friends to the British man's home in the hills of farms only 10 minutes away. His wife was there to greet us and made up some snacks and glasses of beer on their wrap around porch. This was a dream home and the porch, for me, was the icing on the cake. I am in love with this house. The British friend showed us his hobby of magic tricks of which his best trick failed although I did find it still impressive and I was not sure how he did the trick that far!
The hilltop ranch included ducks, cats, and dogs. They used to also have a donkey, turkeys, and chickens but the ability to keep them as farm animals instead of pets became an obstacle. They also have a dream orchard. I am not sue I remember all they types of trees they have but there definitely were grapefruit, TONS of olives, figs, apples, and pomagrantes. As he said, "fruit for every season."
The really fun evening at a beautiful place which was so welcoming it felt like home, had to come to an end. Matt, the Dutch friend, and myself were taken back into town where we gathered our luggage and went over to Denis' bar for a few pints. This extra visiting with the Dutchman and the many people of every age he had made friends with at Denis' bar was fun. He walked us about 23:00 to the bus station and saw us on the bus.
If there is any place in turkey I want to revisit and explore the mountains, it is here.