Cruise Day Five – Kusadasi (Ephesus)

Today was a day I was looking forward to Kusadasi in Turkey. It was from here that we would be going on the only tour that we booked on the Cruise. Ephesus! The day was as all the others so far Hot, no wind and cloudless. We were pleasantly surprised by the port town of Kusadasi. The Turkish People were friendly although the sellers were a bit pushy for our liking.

Ephesus main street

We went on a 4 hour tour of Ephesus and Highlights. Thankfully the coach was air conditioned. It took maybe 40 minutes to make the journey to the site of ancient Ephesus. The tour guide spoke very good english and was very knowledgeable about Ephesus. Apparently back in Pauls day it was a sea side city. It is well inland now mainly because the estuary silted up. It was amazing to walk down the main street trying to imagine how it would have looked 2,000 years ago. It certainly would have been impressive. Marble everywhere, even the street was of marble. In Turkey like Greece, marble is plentiful so it was a common building material. In some places you could see the wheel tracks that carts made in the road.

Guess what this is.

This is the public toilets, t’s just off to there right of the main street. Apparently everyone, men, women and children just rucked up their Togas and sat cheek to cheek. I can only imagine the pleasant odours that must have wafted down main street. It did have a continual flushing mechanism and when you were finished with the business at hand you just leaned forward and scooped up the water flowing in the cut channel in front of you feet to clean up. Hmmmm, I don’t know why but I’m fascinated with the toilet habits of the ancients.

Pieces played out like a jigsaw puzzle prior to assembly.

One thing you probably don’t realise is that most of the standing structures have been reconstructed. Our guide explained how they go about it, they lay all the pieces out like a giant jigsaw puzzle and them lift them into place. If there are broken or missing pieces a mould is created of a similar piece elsewhere and concrete is pored into the mood to create a complete piece, then everything is lifted into place.

Are your eyes glazing over yet? I think I have bored you enough so I will move on.

Ephesus Amphitheatre

As you walk to the end of the main street, you will come to the amphitheatre. This is the most magnificent structure in Ephesus ancient city. The Great Theatre is located on the slope of Panayir Hill, opposite the Harbor Street. It is the largest in Anatolia and has the capacity of 25,000 seats. The acoustics are superb but we couldn’t persuade Becky to sing one of her renditions of “Hey Big Spender” so we moved on.

Have a look at the cruise gallery for more photo’s of Ephesus.

Kusadasi Cafe

After the trip back to Kusadasi we had lunch at a small cafe along the harbour front one of the girls that servers us was a local who’s mother was English and her Father was Turkish and even though she was borne there and lived there all her life, she spoke absolutely perfect english without even a hint of a turkish accent.

The day after we left Kusadasi Turkey there was an attempted Coup in the capital  Istanbul, it seems where every you go in Europe these days you have to deal with the threat of terrorism or civil unrest. Roll on the new system I say.