Selçuk - Gün 5

The guy dropped us off at the international terminal, told us to go down the stairs and across over to the domestric terminal. One would have thought it would've been simpler just to drop us off at the domestic terminal in the first place. I think he was just lazy.

But, we flew out of İstanbul at 7:45am and arrived in İzmir around 9am. There was someone there to pick us up, and he drove us to Kuşadası, where we met up with our small tour group to see Efes, Meryemana, Temple of Artemis, a pottery workshop, and a carpet showhouse.

In our group we had a Norwegian girl on her way to Palestine, two Australian guys, and a Belgian couple with a son at İstanbul University. The Belgian man was pretty angry the whole time (about being late, about not spending more time in Efes, etc.). Pretty exciting.


A road through Efes
The first stop was Efes, a Roman city. Normally, during the summer months it's unbearably hot and completely mobbed with tourists. In these photos, there's only a light sprinkling of site-seers, and no one dying of heat exhaustion.

Efes was a harbor town, although the water has receded many kilometers. The town was actually established 5 different times, in 5 different locations. The fifth reincarnation of Efes is modern day Selçuk.


A partially reconstructed monument- marble and cement. Almost like modern art.


The Celsus Library and Hadrian's Temple
The above view is actually on the 20 lira bill (below). The 50 lira bill actually has the image of the Three Beauties of Kapadokya on it.


A 20 lira bill showing Celsus Library and Hadrian's Temple


Celsus Library
To the right of the library, you see a tablet which actually has Hebrew on it. The road that leads from the right of the library had all sorts of inscriptions in different languages.


Looking up at the Celsus Library


The World's first advertisement
I'm not entirely sure I believe the books when they say this is the world's first advertisement. Not only is it an ad, but it's an ad for the brothel across the street from the library. Apparently, the foot means "left". There's a symbol for "corner". The grapes to the upper left mean "pleasure" and there's a woman to be found to the right. So, basically it says, "You will find pleasure and women on the left corner." I'm still not entirely convinced it's not just random grafitti, much of the labelling and identifying of places is guesswork anyways.


A view from Efes


The Efes Theatre
Apparently, modern artists such as Sting and Guns and Roses have actually performed in this theatre, to an audience.

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The Temple of Artemis
Next stop was the Temple of Artemis, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. It's pretty much nothing but rubble now, all its remains hauled off to England and Germany.

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Three Black kittens at the Virgin Mary's House
We visited Virgin Mary's House next. It was set way atop a hill, and they planted all sorts of lovely trees. It is difficult to imagine such a peaceful place thronged with tourists. It seems sort of sacriligious to treat this Catholic/Christian and Muslim holy place as a tourist attraction.


Meryemana/Virgin Mary's House


In case religious experiences make you tense and stressed, feel free to sit down and have a beer (Efes Pilsen). Weird.

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We visited a pottery workshop and a carpet showhouse somewhere in there. Plus, we had our free lunch at a bus stop- and paid 4 lira for a can of soda (the outrage!). The carpet store was actually interesting, because we got to watch the girls knotting the carpets, and we learned a fair amount about the pricing, materials, manufacturing, etc.

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A sunset on Kuşadası
Afterwards, we were dropped off at our hotel in Kuşadası, a pleasant little beach resort town near to Selçuk. For dinner, we ate at some sea side cafe. Our waiter gave us a giant bowl of cole slaw, enough for 6 people. That, and we couldn't understand what he said half the time. He reminded me of a stereotypical Frenchman, except Turkish.