Turkey and Greek Islands

Cruising the Aegean

Kuşadasi and Ephesus

Kusadasi Harbor

I hope no one minds a little wordplay now and then. We breakfasted Friday, June 14 on the Veranda veranda; that is, we ate breakfast at a table on the veranda of La Veranda, the buffet restaurant on RSSC ships. We had a great view of the harbor of Kuşadasi, the modern Turkish city built near the ruins of the ancient city of Ephesus. After breakfast we collected our bus tickets for two different tours of Ephesus, hiked almost the full length of the ship along the pier, and took long rides to the archaeological site.

Library in Ephesus

What a place to visit! My group started at the upper gate and walked down along the main thoroughfare, detouring from time to time to get in shade for the guide’s explanation. The temperature was already in the mid-90s. Our guide was very good, with degrees in ancient history and ancient literature. Much of what we saw I remembered from the earlier visit, but I did hear much new information from her. Judy’s group — the less walking group — started at the lower level, near the Grand Theatre and the large field of Sarcophagi. Then they went to the Museum, which my group didn’t visit at all that morning. Both of us got a lot of great photos that morning.

I’m not going to say much here about individual things we saw. There were too many, and I can’t claim to remember all the things our guide told us. Instead, I’ll just make sure there are adequate explanations in the captions of the photographs below when I can give them.

Unfortunately the departure after my tour was delayed because we had one person missing from the group. I won’t go into details, but there was an element of the absurd in the discussions about leaving. Imagine one person with two phones having a conversation in English on one and a conversation in Turkish on the other, all on speaker. Eventually the situation was resolved, and we headed back to Kuşadasi.

The final part of each of our morning excursions was a “presentation of traditional Turkish art,” i.e., a chance to buy a Persian rug. I don’t think we went to the same place, but Judy and I agreed that we both saw some incredibly beautiful hand-knotted rugs. We both like the traditional patterns, just look at our house, but my group at least saw some stunningly beautiful modern designs.

House of Mary, Statue

I slipped out of the presentation at the first opportunity and walked back through the city to the ship to grab lunch before I turned around and walked back to take a bus for my afternoon excursion. This one was to the House of the Virgin Mary and the Ephesus Museum. We had a crazy bus ride up a narrow road, going through beautiful lush countryside with great views of the flat plain below. The house itself is an old structure, with a fair amount of reconstruction and preservation evident. I don’t think there’s a lot of evidence or documentation that Mary the mother of Jesus and the Apostle John lived there in the late first century. I’ll have to look that up, because my mind was a sieve by that time. I must have really been tired by that time, because I didn’t even take a photo of the exterior of the building. I did find the place quite peaceful and less cluttered with touristy stuff than many places we would visit on this cruise. In short, I enjoyed this very much, and the statue of Mary that greets visitors along the path is lovely.

After that stop it was my turn to visit the Ephesus Museum, which Judy had visited that morning. It was interesting at dinner for us to swap phones and look at each other’s photos. At times we made almost identical photographs, at others we concentrated on completely different artifacts. Again, I could say something about the history of the excavations and retrieval of works that are scattered through European museums as well as housed here, but I’ll leave you to research that on your own.

I hope you enjoy the photographs. I know we both enjoyed this revisit to Ephesus, and if I’m being honest we enjoyed the presentation of the Turkish rugs. At the end of this day, though, we were both worn out, and the only other important thing I did before falling in bed was to take a photograph of the sunset.