Grand city in ruins : Ephesus

After spending a week in Istanbul, we moved and took the bus to Selcuk.  In Turkey, buses dominate the roads.  Over one hundreds bus companies exist and so competition is stiff.  This being said, bus services are great !  The seats are comfortable with TV, movies and video games displayed on the back of every seat   The muavin (bus assistant, kind of like a flight attendant) serves drinks, munchies and meals.  A cultural bus delight is being served cologne to rub on your neck (although it usually smells like Pine Sol).  Many buses offer overnight services, which can be a plus to avoid paying for accomodation for that night.  So, we took an overnight bus to Selcuk, a very small town next to the ruins of Ephesus, one of the biggest cities and the capital of Asia Minor during the rule of the Roman Empire.  It's a city that plays a big part in Roman and Ottoman, as well as Christian history.  The ruins are gigantic, and only 20 % of them have excavated !
For those that aren;t familiar with St.Paul's letters, he wrote one to the Ephesians, being those that lived in this big city.  He also lived here for three years, getting a regular beating from merchants who sold paraphenelia from the cult of Diana (which was the ruling religion) and who wanted to stop the Christian congregation.  A little side note worthy to know to appreciate Ephasus is that St. John (Jesus' best friend) exiled to Ephasus with the Virgin Mary after Jesus' death.  After Jesus died, he told St.John that his mother would be in his care.  Being that Christians were persecuted after Jesus' death, Mary and John fleed to Ephesus and settled there. Here, he built a church and lived in a house with Mary.  It is in this house that lived her last days and it is in Ephesus where Mary's first church was built.

 This place was huge ! Were it still standing, it would be the 5th largest basilica in the world.

St. Mary's Cathedral:

Then we went to Ephesus.  A few interesting ruins were...


The Great Theater. The seating area can hold 25 000 people.  Each row of seats is pitched more steeply than the one below, improving view and accoustics.  Chris was on the top and I was talking with my inside voice and he could hear me !  St. Paul came to Ephesus and delivered his sermon here, condemning pagan worship. 

 That's me teaching.  But I only have two students.  My popularity has yet to go up.

Hanging out in the corridors undernieth the Great Theater

The library of Celsus, which held more than 12 000 scrolls in niches around its walls.  A 1 metre gap between the inner and outer walls protected the books from extreme temperatures (because it gets pretty cold furing winter and hot during summer) and humidity.  The way it is built, at a slight slant, makes it look bigger than it actually is.

Due to my immaturity and ruin-fatigue that has been setting in, one of the sights that I appreciated the most was the Roman toilets.  Romans pooped in public and it was a very communal thing.

Chris' crunch face.  The "results" would fall down into the drainage system below. In front of the toilets, close to the feet was a second, smaller drainage system. This was used in order for the users to dip their sponge (which was on a stick) into the water stream in front of them so as to wipe their behind.  Then, they would leave the sponge there for the next users.  Yay for sharing !

Heeeeere's Johnny !

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The fountain of Trajan

 

Those are only a few pictures of Ephesus. We've got many more.  If you wanna see more, ask when we get home and we'd be delighted to show you more.

 

 Evrything falls.  Rome did.  And so did the Temple of Artemis...which was one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world.

 There it is !!! One of the Seven Wonders of the World ! A little disspointing isn't it?

 

 

 But the geese that were hanging out beside it were SO CUTE !!!!

 

Another Turkish drink favorite drink is salep. It is a thick sweet milky heavenly drink made with ground orchid bud and honey.  We'll definetly be making some when we get home.  I wonder if you can use soy milk or almond milk instead? Yesss!

Sometimes I have to fight salep for Chris' attention !

In all honesty, we are getting pretty ruined-out.  After spending time in Rome, Greece and Turkey, we've been seeing ruins again and again and again.  I mean, we ARE appreciating them but there's only so much you can see before it all starts to look the same.  It happens with a lot of sights: museums, castle, churches....

This being said, Chris and I thought we would take a break from the ruins and see some of the wonders created by mother nature rather than man.  So we took the next bus to the small village of Pamukkale...