for today’s post, I wanted to focus on our time in the Ephesus area – the ruins of the city of Ephesus were the primary draw to this part of Turkey, but since we were in the area, we also visited nearby Selçuk and Şirince. It really was a whirlwind trip though; we were only “on the ground” (although we technically never really left the ground!) for less than 24 hours!
short language lesson/side note: the funny Ş (with a hook underneath it) is pronounced “sh”; likewise, ç is pronounced “ch”. also, more surprisingly (for me), the ‘c’ in Turkish is pronounced like an English ‘j’, and a ‘j’ is pronounced like an ‘s’. in case you are wondering though, the Turkish ‘s’ remains similar to an English ‘s’ :) all that to say, when we first started this journey and were asking for directions to either Selçuk (“sell chuck”) or Şirince (“syrin-ge”), no one knew what we were talking about!
ŞIRINCE
to be honest, we didn’t really spend much time in the actual village of Şirince – most of my interaction was from overlooking this village from our hotel at the top of the hill behind the village, but let me tell you, that was one great experience!
after our epic day of travelling, I would’ve been happy to be almost anywhere, but the place we stayed (the Nişanyan) was such a delightful place – a perfect place for us to make our temporary “home”. our room was comfortable and the decor throughout the place had such cute little details (there was a library! and a little reading “nook” with an old-fashioned sewing machine doubling as an end table!). the first photo is Lisa’s happy reaction to some of the little tidbits in our room.
the second photo is of us at dinner; yes, it was taken in the reflection of the window we were sitting next to! it was already a little late by the time we got there, so it was great to have dinner on site at the hotel’s restaurant (which is a deservedly top-rated restaurant in its own right too). the food was really yummy; my favorite was the “mommy style” (as per the menu!) beef stew, cooked in a clay pot. our only regret was forgetting to pre-order the chocolate soufflé – by the time we got to dessert, they kitchen had stopped making those… and we just had to keep suffering the rich chocolate smell coming from our neighbors’ tables :)
we rose early the next morning to have a chance to walk the grounds of the inn prior to getting breakfast and heading on our sightseeing way – the hotel has an amazing view of the Şirince village; I actually think it’s more “idyllic” from this vantage point than it was down in the village itself (oh how reality can disappoint sometimes!). the last photo is the awesome breakfast spread, served on a terrace of course, that just sealed the deal – we’re officially in love with this place!
I didn’t really mean for this to be a hotel advertisement, but just to say, it was a nice respite in the midst of a ton of travelling!
EPHESUS
now onto the main event – visiting the ruins of Ephesus! there was so much to see that I can’t comment on it all (although I probably will end up trying to). a few things that I learned from the three-ish hours that we spent here:
- I like ruins a lot more than Lisa does. that’s probably more a statement of how much I like ruins (a lot!) rather than any strong ruin hatred on her part; I think in an alternate lifetime, I could be a pretty happy archaeologist. this is expressed most clearly in the photos as you track them over time – in spite of the heat and the at-time-overwhelming crowds, I seem to just keep picking up more energy and joy as the visit went on. (it was pretty hot though!)
- trying to time your visit to “beat the crowd” is almost an art form! we were originally trying to get to the ruins early (as the guidebooks suggest) to avoid the crowds; the delicious breakfast slightly waylaid us, but we got there not too long after it opened and it was already packed. I think the word had gotten out that “early” was the way to go! however, about two-thirds of the way through our visit, we turned around to head back to the entry gate we started at (to catch our bus as well as to visit the rumored museum shop). the museum shop ended up being non-existent, but that didn't matter – somehow, the ruins had completely emptied out by the time we made our return trip! it was like a totally different place! we took our time heading back and snapped some of our nicer photos during this much more peaceful walk.
- Ephesus was a pretty huge and metropolitan city in its time! I guess I usually think of the church of Ephesus (like from the Bible) rather than this major city of political and economic importance across multiple empires – for example, did you know it was once the Roman capital of Asia and one of the biggest cities in the world? it’s pretty interesting that most of this huge city sits in well-visited and well-preserved ruins, but through the bible, pieces of the modest church of Ephesus still remain relevant to (parts of) the modern world.
- people get remembered for the most random things – case in point: the third photo is a statue of a woman named Scholastica, who helped finance a restoration of the public bath house (this restoration then included a statue of herself near the entrance). I’m sure she did a lot of other stuff in her lifetime, but that statue remains today and is visited by hoards of people every day; in a way, her name goes down in history for having done this one nice thing for this one bath house.
SELCUK AND AROUND
with our few remaining hours in the area, we spent some time in the nearby "main town" of Selçuk. we had a quick lunch and visited two places in town: (1) St. John's Basilica - haha the first photo is from there and captures Lisa's surprise to see that the basilica ALSO lies in ruins. "more ruins?!" :) it was a pretty special place though mostly because this is where John (the apostle) was buried! his grave is beneath the plaque in the third photo - that location used to be where the altar was located when the basilica was still standing. one other interesting thing that happened while we were here... we were filmed for a Turkish tourism video! they took some video footage of us walking around and taking photos; i'm sure fame and fortune is soon to follow.... (2) the Temple of Artemis - to round out this ruin-ous day, except this is a site that Lis picked to see. it's like a bite-sized amount of ruins, really just one column remaining out of the formerly *127* columns of this temple. in its heyday, this temple was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world (no shabby credentials!), but all that remains today is this lone column with a HUGE bird nest atop it. the last picture is just noteworthy because my outfit that day (in various shades of khaki, cream and brown) really just blended in so well with all the ruins we visited - i'm basically just an extension of the column at this point :)
phew - what a marathon post! thanks for reading and good night!
1 comments:
çenn, please take more food pictures and less boring ruins pictures =)
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