Mediteranean Serenade: Kusadasi & Ephesus, Turkey

We had a great day in Turkey. I fell in love with the beauty of the country and the warmth of the people. Oh, and the temperature was pretty warm, also. It was only about 75 or 80 degrees, but it felt like 100. The sun is very intense here. By August it will be 115, I can’t even imagine how miserable that would be.

We docked in Kusadasi, pronounced Koosh-uh-DAH-seh.

Two ships over was the Pacific Princess, the ship used for the old Love Boat TV series.

We were greeted on the pier by a group of dancers performing.

We boarded our bus and headed for the ancient ruins of Ephesus, with our guide Nevin. She gave us some background about the city as we drove the 4 miles to it. Ephesus, founded in the 10th century BC, was an ancient Greek city that was built where the Cayster River flows into the Aegean Sea on the west coast of Turkey. In 27 BC Augustus made Ephesus the capital of Asia Minor. The city had to be relocated twice due to the silting of the Cayster River whose alluvial fan kept filling Ephesus Harbor despite ongoing attempts to dredge the harbor. The Romans turned Ephesus into a huge commercial port and by 100 AD it was the second largest city in the Roman Empire with an estimated population of over 400,000. The Cayster River eventually silted out again. It filled in the Port of Ephesus until it was marshland, a perfect breeding ground for mosquitoes. Malaria began killing the Ephesians and the city was abandoned by the Romans in 600 AD. As inhabitants left the city to build elsewhere, they took with them many of the stones from the existing buildings and most of the marble.

The city was covered by silt over time, and the ancient ruins were only rediscovered in 1896. It's taken over 100 years to excavate just 55% of the city and only a fraction of that has been restored. The city covers a large area which takes 3 hours to walk through. It’s mind-boggling to see the effort that has been put into recovering this lost treasure.

As we drove along, I saw 2 Kangal dogs running in a field. It made me miss my dear dogs Sultan, Efe, and Sirin who were born in Turkey. They are very large fawn-colored dogs used as livestock guardians. I used them to guard my large goat herd.

It wasn’t long until we had reached Ephesus. Near the entrance is the music theater. Notice in the background of these photos that the hillsides look very much like Colorado foothills and the sky is crystal blue just like home.

Nevin explained how all these columns are built. It’s really quite clever. Each column is made up of several sections which are stacked. Each section has a hole down the middle, like a donut. They stack them, line them up perfectly, and then pour molten metal into the hole to stabilize the column. Some columns are one solid piece of marble, but when they could, they would use sections.

Cats were everywhere! Each one has a specific column that it defends as its territory. The guides bring food and water to them so they’re very tame.

One interesting feature was the “public potty”. They actually had dual clay pipes running throughout the complex – one that provided running water and the other was the sewer. This public bathroom had marble seats which would be cold in the winter months. The rich would send their slaves in to warm up the seats for them. It had running water underneath to “flush” away the waste and a channel of running water at their feet to wet a sponge that was used for toilet paper. The sponges were shared – gross! There was no privacy and it was coed. Music would be played to cover “noises”.

The richest people lived in the Terrace Houses overlooking the complex. We were guided through this part by one of the archaeologists who worked here for 30 years. This part of the tour is covered by a temporary roof similar to the Denver International Airport and provides some very welcome relief from the blazing sun. These homes were like apartments and were quite posh with marble walls and mosaic tiled floors. A few of the rooms were covered with the same type of rare marble as the Colorado State Capital. Some of the wall paintings are sill visible. It was really impressive. We walked on scaffolding with a plexiglass floor to preserve the site. This first photo shows some of the many tables covered with bits of marble being reassembled like a giant jigsaw puzzle. What a job trying to piece it all back together!

From behind the Terrace Houses we could see the marshy area where the Mediterranean Sea used to be. It’s hard to visualize this site as having been oceanfront property at one time when it’s now about 4 miles from the sea.

The big attraction here is the Library of Celsus. It was the 3rd largest library in antiquity and housed over 12,000 scrolls and papyrus documents. In its glory, it must have been magnificent. Off to the right is the gate which served as the entrance to the agora (crossword puzzlers know this to be the Roman market).

On the front are the statues of 4 women who represent Wisdom, Knowledge, Virtue, and Friendship. I’m not sure which is which, but here’s one of them.

This is a large arena that was used for gladiator fights and sporting events. A number of famous singers have performed concerts here with the perfect acoustics. Also, as mentioned in the Bible, St. Paul came to Ephesus to give a speech about Christianity in this arena. A riot was instigated by the local artisans whose livelihood depended upon sales of artifacts related to their 12 pagan gods, now being threatened by someone claiming there is only a single god. Consequently the speech was canceled. St. Paul resorted to writing to the people. Hence this is the source of the Letters to the Ephesians in the New Testament.

The tour concluded with a play. We saw the girls do a simple belly dance, and then the gladiators fought. At the end of a fight, the King would give a thumbs-up signal to the winner to drive the sword upwards into the throat of the loser, or a thumbs-down meaning for the victor to lay down his weapon.. Contrary to what we see in the movies, very few gladiators were killed, other than by accident. It was too expensive to train new ones to replace them.

There are no restrooms inside Ephesus, and after 3 hours we were ready for one. Luckily, Royal Caribbean provided a “mobile potty”. When Nevin said that, I was thinking it would be PortAPotty. I was pleasantly surprised to see an RV which has been fitted with a men’s and women’s two-stall restroom. It was clean and nice.

We loved our tour and came away with a lot of understanding about how people lived in this age. I would suggest a few pointers to anyone thinking of visiting here. It’s hot and there isn’t much shade – dress in light, loose-fitting clothes, wear sensible walking shoes and a hat, use sun screen, take lots of water and a small snack, and use an umbrella for shade. This tour isn’t recommended for young children – they won’t understand it and they’ll be miserable. We heard lots of them crying and complaining. It isn’t really accommodating to the elderly, either – the path is cobblestone and hard to walk on or push a wheelchair on, there are lots of stairs, and it’s really hot.

Back in Kushadasi we ended our day with a tour of the carpet gallery. They showed us how they turn the silk from these cocoons soaking in warm water…

… into these unbelievable silk carpets.

They served our choice of beverage: Turkish beer or wine, or their famous apple tea. And we each got a piece of what looked like a very large pretzel. It was all yummy.

Kusadasi has a beautiful walkway around the harbor that leads to a sandy beach.