Turkey, day 10

At 5:30 Monday morning, my grandma and I got in a cab to the airport. After checking in, we hopped in a bus to the plane. Then we boarded the plane, flew 550 km, and deplaned at Izmir. Next, we joined a bus to Selçuk. Then we took a cab to the House of the Virgin Mary and Ephesus.

It was a long day.

But just, Ephesus.

Why hello there, Library of Celsus.

AHHHHHH ancient ruins are pretty cool.

But before going up to Ephesus, as I said, we visited the House of the Virgin Mary. I had been warned by a friend (shout out to Jacob!) that the area was not worth the 15 TL entrance fee, and this is probably somewhat accurate--especially as I am not even a little bit Catholic. However, the story (history? That's a loaded question...) of the site and its position as a place of pilgrimage are fairly interesting to read about and experience, and I'm glad I went. I didn't take any pictures of the church itself, but there was this pit there. Please tell me if you know what it is, because I can't figure it out.

After this nice dose of religious history, we moved onto the main event: Ephesus. Ephesus was a Greek city and then a Roman city, and at one point it had a population of a quarter million people. Now about 35,000 people live in the nearest town. Aren't population shifts cool? I'm not going to try to recount the history of Ephesus here, because a) there's a lot to it and b) I'm not incredibly well versed in it, but I suppose what's important is that it was off and on a very significant place from the 10th century BCE to the 15th century CE. Obviously, that's a long time.

A lot of the really nifty statues and things have been moved to museums elsewhere from Ephesus, because of vandalism fears, but that's not to say that what remains isn't spectacular. As my grandma said time and time again as we were walking around, "how did they manage to build all this back then?" How indeed. I am almost sure pictures can express this better than words, so here are a few.

Some latrines. You're welcome.

The Temple of Hadrian. Look at that arch!

According to my grandma people still perform here sometimes? I think that would be brilliant.

I found Ephesus kind of strange because you can just clamber all over most of the ruins. Maybe this is the case everywhere there are ruins like this? My experience is pretty limited. In any event, I can't complain, because it means you can feel like an ancient Greek! Kind of. At the very least, you can climb to the top of the theatres and take snazzy pictures.

The Odeon!

We decided to go inside this covered archeological area to see the terrace houses, which were so, so fantastic. Archaeologists are slooowwllly uncovering and rebuilding them and the whole interior is like a giant jigsaw puzzle. Some of this work is being sponsored by the very same company that operates the brilliant office building/contemporary art museum we visited Sunday in Istanbul!

I could go for some mosaics like this on my floor.

The final thing I have to say about Ephesus is that there are SO MANY cats around. I mean, there are a lot of stray cats in Turkey in general, but when my grandma and I took a snack break no fewer than six cats wound around our feet in hopes of procuring some banana. Cats don't even eat bananas, right? These two were having a lengthy cat standoff outside the library.

I think the one lying down was victorious.

After Ephesus, we had a delightfully inexpensive and delicious vegetarian lunch in Selçuk. This camel was also wandering around making jangly noises--pardon the horrible angle of this photograph.

We walked around Selçuk for a little bit, and I enjoyed the taste of small-town Turkey, but then it was back to Istanbul with the whole cab-bus-plane-bus-cab process in reverse. We arrived back just in time to collapse into bed, exhausted. 

*Most of the photos with me in them in this post are thanks to my dear grandmother. Also, kudos to her for doing all this trekking with me!