|
Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23
We left Ephesus at 12:30 and drove back to Selcuk for lunch (including fresh squeezed
orange juice). A noisy procession of people in horse and donkey drawn carts passed by,
celebrating (we were told) a young boys circumcision.
We walked around the corner from our hotel to visit the Basilica of St. John. The original church on this site was constructed in the 4th Century over the Apostle's tomb. That church was replaced by a much larger one in the 6th Century. It is the ruins of that later church that can be seen today. The basilica was incredibly large and, at one point, it was fortified with massive defensive walls, making it a fortress as well as a church. Of those fortifications, only the gate remains.
Extensive restoration work is underway. In a few years it should be
easier for visitors to envision the basilica as it once stood.
As we left the basilica, a friendly Turkish man struck up a conversation with
us in excellent English and eventually invited us to come to his shop for apple
tea. He was no less pleasant when we politely declined. We then walked to the Efes
Museum a block away. There were many interesting objects from the ruins, though none of great
renown. Most interesting to me was the full scale replica of an interior
room of one of the "houses on the slope" that we had been unable to
visit because of ongoing restoration work. (Unfortunately, we couldn't
photograph it.)
We walked back to the carpet shop to return Gursel's books and take him up on his offer to guide us to Sirince, the "Greek village" as he (and our guide book) called it. We took our car and drove a few miles on a poor road. Sirince was founded by Christians who left Ephesus in 600 A.D. Our guidebook described it as "still unspoiled by tourists" but it's a close thing. The side streets (often more like paths) are very quaint, but the center of town is lined with shops catering to tourists.
Most of the village women crochet things for tourists in their spare time. Gursel took us to the home of a cousin where he was supposed to get some wine. It was interesting to see the inside of small rural home. We also saw lots of goats and donkeys. Jane bought a box of the kind of apple tea we were served whenever we sat down to talk to a Turk. Gursel bought us some apples to snack on. We drove back to Selcuk and dropped him off.
We drove to the 14th Century Isa Bey Mosque and parked, but we were a little
uneasy about just walking in and looking around. We finally spotted a
Turkish man coming out and asked him if we could go in. (Fortunately,
he spoke some English.) He said that now was not a good time because there
was a service in progress. So we decided not to go in.
Although it started raining and was getting dark, we drove two blocks to the Temple of
Artemis (Artemision) to scope it out for the next morning. This was one of the Seven Wonders
of the ancient world. Reconstructed four times between 550 B.C. and 262 A.D., the temple was
once the world's largest marble structure, 500 by 175 feet with a massive roof supported by 127
Ionic columns, each 60 feet tall. After the worship of Artemis declined, most of the marble was
used to build the nearby Basilica of St. John and the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople. All that
remains is the foundation and a single marble column.
We discovered that there was a magnificent view looking back up the hill
from the Artemision. We could see the Isa Bey Mosque, with the Ayasoluk
Fortress just above it, and just to the right was the Basilica of St.
John.
We stopped at the carpet shop to pay Gursel for the apples and a guide to Ephesus he bought for us, as well as to give him something for going to Sirince with us. I gave him 250,000 lira ($5.40), but Gursel said that was too much. Then he said he'd get us all some Turkish pizza and soft drinks with the money. He had several eight-inch pizzas delivered, and we each ate three of them. They came with fresh tomato slices and watercress on the side. Following Gursel's example, we laid these on the pizza, then rolled it up and ate it. Then I asked to look at some carpets. [Gursel had studiously avoided the subject ever since I had joked (?) earlier that the people from the carpet shop were so friendly to us because they hoped to sell us a carpet.] We really didn't know what we wanted but finally bought a small (3x5) one for the den. It cost $475. Back at our hotel, we each ate an apple. Then I went out to get Jane an ice cream bar and some fresh-roasted pistachios for myself. We finished the wine from Bergama and went to bed around ten. Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 |
