As you know, I spent the last couple days in Selçuk, a ten to eleven hour bus ride from Istanbul. My friend Anna and I arrived early Wednesday morning, dropped our bags at the hostel, had a quick breakfast and borrowed some bikes to head down to Ephesus, about a three kilometer journey.
We got in free with our museum cards, but I would have paid to see it if I had to. The ruins were very well maintained; there was one sign that said there were about 14,000 people who worked on the restoration! Even though it was filled with tourists, it was easy to imagine what it would have been like to live there 2000 years ago.
On the way back we stopped at the shrine of the Seven Sleepers. According to legend, seven young Christians were persecuted in Ephesus and took shelter in this old crypt; they woke up 200 years later, when Christianity was the majority religion of Rome. The site was actually closed for archaeological work, but there was a nice little restaurant nearby where we stopped for a bit. We also saw the last remaining pillar of the Temple of Artemis, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient world. The pillar looked like it had been recreated to some extent from fragments lying about, but was over sixty feet high; there were once 127 of them. Pretty impressive; most of the stone went to the building of mosques and churches like the Hagia Sophia.
In the afternoon we hiked up a hill to the ruins of a church built over the supposed tomb of the apostle John. It had a gorgeous view, and it was nice to get a breeze after the heat and sun of the day.
Yesterday we saw the house where Mary lived, according to legend; it's not really something you'd think would be in Turkey, but there were definitely a lot of people on pilgrimages of sorts. We sipped some water from the spring, lit a candle, and tied a wish to the wishing wall they had their.
Later, we went to a mosque near St. John's church. Unlike most mosques, this was rectangular (most are square); it was kind of fun to see the different architecture. Our bus didn't leave until 10:15, so we spent the rest of the afternoon at the beach which was a short bus ride away.
Of course, this trip had some of the best Turkish food I've had yet-- pide, a kind of flatbread with cheese and optional meat or egg on it (I know, it sounds weird, but it's delicious!) and spinach and cheese gosleme-- there's really no way to explain it, you'll just have to find some for yourselves!
I'll save the pictures until tomorrow so you'll all have something to look at while I begin packing!
