European Vacation - Izmir (Day 8)

Izmir/Ephesus (Day 8)

Our first (and what we thought at the time would be our only) morning in Turkey started out in the ship’s auditorium waiting for our tour group to be called. We decided when we booked the cruise that the sights we wanted to see in Izmir weren’t actually in Izmir, and, with no public transportation to our desired destination, we were stuck on one of the ship’s shore excursions. Yippy! Can you tell I wasn’t thrilled with the idea of being part of a tour group? There’s always one person in the group that makes trouble for everyone else. When one guy got on the bus with a cane, I thought we were done for. Surprisingly, that guy could really move, and we spent more time waiting for people to shop than we did waiting for him to catch up. Another thing that really helped our tour was the radio headsets we were given to wear. Our tour guide had a microphone and we each had a headset. We could wander away from him to see what we really wanted, but we weren’t worried about getting lost.

Once the 25 or so members of our tour group boarded the bus, we headed out of Izmir and south toward the House of the Virgin Mary. The Turkish countryside was very green with lots of orchards and other agricultural fields. Not at all what we expected when we envisioned Turkey. We also didn’t anticipate pouring rain, but that’s what we got… all day long.

The House of the Virgin Mary left a little to be desired, especially from the authenticity standpoint. No one could provide me with any sort of historical reference to Mary actually living in this house – not even when I asked directly. I guess when the Pope says something, everyone just kind of goes along with it?? Only about 2 feet of the original foundation of the house remains, but the building has been restored to reflect its condition at the time of Mary’s inhabitation. The house itself was made up of 4 rooms – an entry way, a living space, and two other smaller connected rooms. All together the house was maybe 300 square feet. Today, the living area is used for daily mass and one of the smaller rooms houses the altar. There is also a natural spring that provides authentic holy water next to the house. We filled up a water bottle, because, why not!

Everyone took a little time to shop at the stores near the exit of the site, before we loaded back onto the bus and headed to the city of Ephesus. A quick history of Ephesus… the city was first settled around 6000 BC and grew to one of the largest cities in the world under both Greek and Roman rule, peaking around 200 AD. It was once home to the Temple of Artemis (one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World). St. Paul’s visits to the city are recorded in the book of Acts, and the book of Ephesians includes his letters to the people of Ephesus during his imprisonment in Rome. Today, Ephesus is one of the most well-preserved ancient cities in the Mediterranean. As you’ll see, well-preserved is a relative term.

Our tour of Ephesus started at the “top” of the city in the Upper Agora. This area included the Odeon (small theatre) and the Prytaneion. These areas were important to the daily government of Ephesus. Access to the Upper Agora was limited to government officials and other members of the city’s ruling class. The coolest thing we saw in this area was the clay water pipe system. These pipes used to carry water from the city’s aqueducts to individual buildings. Just think, if you live in an older US city, your water probably travels through nearly identical pipes to get to your house. I guess when the Romans get something right, it sticks around for a while.

We moved from the Upper Agora to the Street of Curetes and the Lower Agora through the Gate of Hercules. This gate was built too narrow for chariots – confining them to the Upper Agora. All along the Street of Curetes are the ruins of market shops and stalls. During the city’s peak, this street was illuminated and housed all the shopping your Roman heart could desire. There is also a separate, raised area of the Street of Curetes decorated in a detailed mosaic pattern. This area was for the rich folks –no mixing with the commoners. In addition to the market stalls, the Street of Curetes was home to the Temple of Hadrian and the public toilets. The tradition of shaking with your right hand originated for sanitation reasons in this type of public toilet. Please don’t make me explain why.

At the bottom of the Street of Curetes is the Library of Celsus. The front façade of the library is quite well preserved (again it’s relative). It is easy to imagine what the inside of the building would have looked like filled with scrolls. The building was oriented to the sun and designed with a double wall system to take advantage of natural light and reduce the humidity inside. Roman engineering strikes again. Just past the Library of Celsus, on the Marble Road (nice name), was the Grand Theatre. It was here that St. Paul gave sermons to the citizens of Ephesus during his time in the city. It’s a little surreal to think about sitting in the audience of the theatre listening to someone like Paul.

We piled back into the bus to ride to a nice buffet lunch at a local hotel – because I hadn’t eaten like a pig for a week now. The meal was good, but dessert included real baklava. Soooooo good! I’m hungry just thinking about it (that could also be because it’s dinner time here). After lunch, we headed to a local carpet making factory. There, we learned how they remove the silk fibers from silk worm cocoons (by boiling them). We then saw weavers making the famous Turkish carpets. We learned that hand-tied carpets look darker from one direction than the other, while machine-tied carpets look the same from every direction. We also learned that hand-tied carpets are beautiful and expensive. We bought a really small one, and it’s our favorite souvenir. We counted (and then multiplied) the knots on our carpet and figured our 3’x4’ rug has over 50,000 individual knots. Crazy!

We made it back to the boat just in time for them to take off from the dock. Once everyone was inside and we were pulling away (ie: no escape), they announced that we would not be going to Egypt because tanks were rolling into Cairo’s central square and all the tourist sites had been closed down. Amazing what can happen in 12 hours, as everything was still relatively calm when we left the boat that morning. We were understandably upset at our awesome timing, but, after watching the news, completely agreed with the boat’s decision to re-route to Istanbul. Nothing like changing vacation plans on the fly especially with almost no cell service, phone calls at $5.95/min and internet as low as $0.75/min! Did I mention that cruising feels a little like a racket? I did manage to get a text message to Dad before we got too far away from land, so I guess it all worked out okay.