Ephesus

We had a day visit to Ephesus, leaving at 6.30am, stopping for breakfast on the way and an enormous Dam which is being constructed. C's dad was a civil engineer working on dams for the hydro board here in Scotland so that was especially interesting and quite daunting in its size and grandeur. The landscape was amazing, the types of rocks changing every 30 minutes or so and the guide giving us a running commentary on the history of Turkey or Anatolia as it was here.
After the dam, we stopped in modern day Ephesus and visited a Ceramic workshop. Beautiful Turkish Turquoise, fabulous colours and really interesting designs. Managed not to spend too much money here but it was hard.

We left the modern town behind and drove on up into the hills, round a series of steep bends and past areas ravaged by the summer fires of a few years ago, arriving at 'Virgin Mary House' at around 11.00am.After the Crucifixion, when Jesus handed His mother to St John and vice versa, they travelled and eventually ended up in Ephesus where they lived and ultimately spent the last years of their lives. There are the remains of a huge basilica for St John and in the mountains, a small church and shrine which are said to be on the site of the house where Mary spent her last years. The place is very atmospheric and looked after by nuns who conduct services daily.

After visiting the house, we went down the mountain again to Ephesus, entering at the highest point. The town is beautiful and very atmospheric. I had been looking forward to this visit since August when we started to plan. The idea of walking in the places where St John and St Paul and the recipients of the letter to the Ephesians lived and carried on with their daily lives 2000 years ago, was incredible. Was St Luke there too? The details in Acts suggest it. The top of the hill has a small theatre and then winds down 'Curetes Street' passing statues and the remains of columns and buildings. There is a fantastic marble of Nike goddess of Victory, a headless Skolastica who built the fantastic public baths, public toilets which kept a group of Japanese tourists in fits of giggles as each had their photo taken sitting on them!!!???!!! and gate posts with carvings of Hercules complete with lions heads.

A magnificent Library of Celsus marks the turn in the road onto Marble Street. Through a magnificent arch erected by two slaves in thanksgiving for having been granted their freedom... fairly well to do slaves, the gate was enormous. Down the street until we arrived at the next Theatre which is truly amazing and absolutely enormous, built into the side of the hill. Our guide explained the difference between an amphitheatre and a theatre. Apparently the acoustics in this theatre are great with only a whisper in the  orchestra audible to those in the top rows.

On leaving the site, we paid a brief visit to the site of the Temple of Artemis, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world - of which only a pillar erected to mark the site remains. From here you can see the remains of the 6th Century Basilica of St John, where his tomb is, a 14th century mosque all overlooked by a hilltop fort. We then headed off along the roads which are surprisingly good and in the process of getting better.

Turkey is a country with amazing plateaux most of which are over 3000 feet high and the peaks above quite look down on our Scottish mountains! I don't think I really understood what a plateau was until this journey even though I did Sixth Year Studies Geography way back in nineteen oatcake! To get up some of the mountains... which is necessary as one travels along the coast, the roads have a terrifying series of hairpin bends which must have been much worse before the current improvements.