Turkey Round 2: Part 3: Ephesus at last

We got back from Sardis just in time for one of my friends to head to the airport but too late to meet up with another friend.  My other friend and I got some dinner, wandered around the bazaar, and headed back to the otogar to take a bus to Selcuk.  Thankfully, unlike Georgian transportation, most buses left within five minutes of us getting on them, and this one was no different.  We arrived at Selcuk, grabbed some tea and dessert at an ice cream place, and then found our pansiyon before crashing after a long day.   

We got up early to another delicious Turkish breakfast with unlimited tea and then, taking the advice of our hostess, walked to Ephesus.  We entered through the gate most people exit, so the ancient theater was practically empty upon our arrival.  We started to see crowds as we wandered toward the library but did not see swarms of tourists until we looked toward the main street, which was filled.  Somehow, we managed to cross most of the tourists and had a relatively easy time seeing the rest of the site.  It’s pretty extraordinary how much they were able to recover, as well as how much classical debris they just have lying about.  So many columns and architectural finishes that pleased me to no end but made me wish I remembered more about them!  In addition to the center of town, the harbor road is somewhat restored.  Along that road is the Church of St. Mary, which was the main church in Ephesus until the Basilica of St. John was built.  Mary’s house is another tourist site near Ephesus, but it is about 10km away and the links between the house and Mary (as in the Virgin Mary) seemed too dubious to make the trek.

After a few hours, we walked back to town, stopping at the remains of the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus.  There’s one column and a lot of debris left where the magnificent temple once stood.  Still, it checked #2 of the 7 Wonders of the Ancient World off my list and gave me the chance to climb on the one remaining column, so I considered it a success.  After another tea break, we headed into the mosque in town, which still functions but when we walked in only served as a tourist trap.  We then headed to St. John’s basilica, in the shadow of the fortress.  The basilica is now in ruins, but if it were still standing, it would be the 7^th largest church in the world.  It also holds the tomb of St. John, as in the writer of the Gospel of John, which people believe he wrote on the hill in Ephesus (now in Selcuk), where the fortress now stands.  It was pretty cool to see his tomb and where he wrote my favorite gospel at one time, especially on a beautiful day with flowers blooming around the ruins of the basilica.  While both churches in Ephesus/Selcuk were built far after Paul and John lived here, it was still a lot to think about that a town known for its pagan temple also sheltered two of Christianity’s greatest men, had a long history of Christianity, but now exists in a 99% Muslim country.

Sadly, the fortress is closed to visitors, as I would have loved to check it out as well.  It’s from the Byzantine era, and all the signs said that maybe it was built to honor John, since it sits upon the hill he wrote his gospel on.  With all this to soak in, we headed to a cute little café, clearly owned by Westerners, for tea/coffee and hummus.  Thus restored, we set off for the Ephesus museum, which housed remnants of the town that Western powers had not managed to cart away to their museums but were too small or important to be housed at the site.  Among other fragments of statues and columns were the head and fist of Domitian, a Roman emperor who granted Ephesus the right to have an emperor cult, and thus they built him a giant statue 3x the size of the actual man.  The museum also had a mini ethnographic museum showing Turkish life from around the 1800s, but after all the ancient glory, it seemed far less interesting than it normally would have.  We stopped for tea and then decided to investigate whether it was possible to go to Rhodes after all.  We wandered into the nearest travel agent and found out we could have gone to Rhodes had we not made plans to fly home on Saturday, but we could change our bus tickets for the next day and go to the Greek island of Samos the very next day.  Thus, we went from staying in Selcuk one night to three nights.   

We walked around the cute touristy town for a while and then headed back to our pansiyon, exhausted.  We really liked Selcuk, since it is easy to get around in, has lots of restaurants and tourist shops, but in April was not overflowing with tourists or pushy salespeople.  I also have to admit that I had heard more English, especially American English, than I had heard in a very long time, and I liked it.  Perhaps that means I’ve been away too long as American accents now seem comforting.