Ephesians

Wednesday 15th

Ok so we headed out to see the ruins at Ephesus and only got as far as the front door of our hotel. The hotel owner said to go in the afternoon as its not so hot and there are less tourists on day trips from other places...


Learning backgammon
Bowls anyone? comes with free cat.

So we took his advice and looked around the town. There is a great ruin in town anyway so we walked over to see St John Basillica, it was built because John apparently lived in Ephesus (and wrote his gospel here) with Mary (mother of Jesus)... but I didn't get that bit, cos she had a family so maybe they were just neighbours :) Next we looked around in the shops to check out what Selcuk had to offer, it was much nicer than the touristy stuff in Istanbul. Anyway we got talking to one shop owner and he offered us tea and next thing we knew we were having backgammon lessons and trying to beat the shopkeeper. We enjoyed ourselves so much we ended up buying a nice backgammon set, which might have been the shop owners plan all along :)


The Library of Celcus
We headed out to see Ephesus at 4pm, it was still hot but there weren't too many tourists. First stop was the massive amphitheatre, then the Library, we saw Marble st, temples, baths and even ancient public toilets. It was pretty impressive.
The main amphitheatre
Not much was left of the ancient basillica at the top of the hill but it seemed very big. You had to pay an extra admission fee to get into the restored ancient houses... so we just peeked around the gates and looked in. Overall it was pretty impressive being somewhere so old and still so preserved that you get an idea of what life might've been like. I think I liked it even better than Pompeii even though the guidebook says Pompeii is more important 'archeologically' :)
In the Amphitheatre...
One of the streets
In the entrance to the public baths

The Library again :)
The temple of Hadrian
An old mosaic floor

A view of the main road

Next stop: Bodrum!!