Thursday we got up early to get to see the sights before it got too hot. We started by going to the bus station and grabbing a cab. our first stop was the Virgin Mary’s House. About 15km outside Selçuk in the hills. Jesus had entrused St. Johm to look after his mother, just prior to his death. St. John never left her side throughout the rest of her days, and with him going to Ephasus (present day Selçuk) that the home she lived and died in is here. It was a little stretch for the explanation of how the remains of the home were found. In the early 20th century, a nun had a vision about the ruins of Ephasus and the hills surrounding and the house of the Virgin Mary. She was able to lead a group of people to the remains of the house. All that was left was about half a metre above the ground, but it has since been restored and quite commercialized.
Inside they had a small shrine and place to pray, but not much other space. Outside there is a spring with taps that pour holy water (or so it is said) and a whole bunch of petitions on small pieces of paper and tied along a wall outside the spring.
We were only there about 20 minutes, and got just in before a whole bunch of tour busses. From there we went down to the top gate of Ephasus (or Efes in Turkish). There were lots and lots of people, all in tour groups and moving slowly, and it was starting to get really hot, only at 10:00. We went to the Odeon first, thinking it was the amphitheatre. We were quite disappointed, but then after looking at our map, we realized our mistake. We raced across the site, and took a quick break at the library, which has an amazing two-storey facade.
Then we made it to the 20,000 seat amphitheatre where our timing was just about perfect and we were the only ones there.
With nobody there, we even managed to set my camera on burst mode and do some double tours to 20,000 empty seats.
There we were at the bottom gate, and worked our way back up to the top gate. With Ephasus being the best preserved Roman ruins in Asia, there is some stuff there, but not too much. However it was still very cool to see the main centre of the city that had 200,000 inhabitants. There were a few sites that were closed for archeological work including the old port, but we still saw most of it. By 11:30 we were getting far too hot in the 38 degree weather, and had had enough, so headed out back for the hostel. The crowds were getting pretty insane too.
After stopping for lunch, to combat the heat, we got back to the hostel, cranked the air conditioning, and took a nap. After getting up in the late afternoon, we figured we had escaped the sun for long enough and headed to Pamucak Beach which is only 7km away. We took a local dolmus (mini-bus) there and it was pretty nice. The waves were rolling, the beach was sandy, but it was pretty dead, and not much to do aside from sit on the sand or go in the water.
After cramming onto a dolmus to get back to town and dropping off stuff at the hotel, we went exploring a bit and found the most amazing Turkish pizza for supper. One of the best meals in Turkey.
Then it was back to the roof of the hostel, sitting, drinking vodka, and chatting.
No comments:
Post a Comment