Eastern European Vacation Day 8

Thursday November 4th, 2010.
Today we docked on a new continent; Asia! The small Turkish town of Kusadasi may have been where the ship parked, but it was not our destination for the day. The real reason for stopping in these parts is to visit the ancient ruined city of Ephesus, about 20 minutes north of town. We had arranged for a proper shore excursion so off we went on the bus, complete with local guide K (he had a weird first name so he asked to just be called K).

This area of Turkey is really quite beautiful; nice beaches and rolling hills planted with fruit and conifer trees. There has been a lot of development over the past 10 years as the area has become a bit of a destination for tourists. Sandra was in this area 10 years ago and she commented on all of the changes, quite a few big resorts now line the coast.

On our way up to Ephesus, K gave us a run down on the history of the city – after a few minutes I could already tell that he was going to be an excellent guide; superb English and his passion for the history of the region was very evident. Basically Ephesus was founded in about 2500BC by the Greeks as an export point for the local agricultural crops. However, over time the port gradually became filled with silt until it eventually dried up altogether. In fact the current coast line is about 5 miles from where it was when Ephesus was founded.

After arrival, K picked up out tickets and we entered through the upper gates of the city; right past the “Genuine Fake Watch” stall. To help with the tour we were all issued miniature radio receivers with an earpiece; K had a transmitter and this arrangement meant that the whole group could hear what he had to say without standing right beside him. Even though this was at the end of the tourist season there were still a lot of tour groups making their way through the city – I would no recommend trying to visit Ephesus without an official guide.

Ephesus is just magnificent; there is an ongoing government restoration program that has brought many of the most significant buildings back to life. As we wandered down the main street K pointed out lots of interesting facts; St. John preached there, this was the brothel, this was the library, look you can tell this was a Christian shop because of the symbol carved on the ground. There is also a 60,000 seat theater built into a hillside. The tour finished and we exited through the upper gates of the city, right by the clean toilet facility trailer provided by Cunard for the exclusive use of their guests.

Our guide K further endeared himself to us by showing love for cats. The ruined city has a large population of feral cats and most of them seemed to know that K would be carrying a tin of cat food; at every turn a cat would appear and K would drop a few pellets – to the great delight of the cat and the tour group!

Back on the bus we headed for our next stop; the church of St. John – a short ride from Ephesus. This church, high up on a hill, is built on the top of the spot where St. John was originally buried. The church is much ruined though we did see the official burial spot and also a strange sunken bathtub in the shape of a cross; the idea being that pagans enter one side of the bath, were completely submerged and emerged from the other side as Christians.

We made one final and brief stop at the (really) ruined temple of Diana; all that remains is a single column in a field. Nevertheless we battled our way through the obligatory throng of souvenir sellers to take the obligatory photo.

We returned to Kusadasi and were deposited at a large shop that sold Turkish carpets for a “weaving demonstration” – that of course turned out to be a major sales pitch. The carpets were beautiful, but we explained to the nice man that we had spent all of our money on a big chandelier in Murano.

Leaving the carpet shop we headed into the pedestrian bazaar section of town – with Sandra as out trusty guide. This area is full of trinket shops and cafes; we sat ourselves down in a street café and ordered beer and kabobs. After a bit more aimless wandering we returned to the ship.