I’m now at the regional Airport in Dinizli getting ready to board my evening flight back to Istanbul.
I enjoyed a fabulous two days in the picturesque Agean seaside town of Kusadasi, the first port where cruise ships docked in Turkey.
Jammed with tourists in season, the delightful town was even more so in the quiet of the off season and the weather was perfect.
The first day I toured Ephesus whose history predates the current ruins constructed by the Romans in the 3rd Century BC. The city was entirely built of marble, mostly shining white marble but also with darker marble transported from Egypt and other distant lands.
They had wide boulevards of shining white marble lined with shops and stores of every description. A theatre that seated 25,000 where plays were enacted and where gladiators fought. Open markets, commercial and government buildings, libraries, baths and pleasure houses and even privies for the upper classes with marble toilet seats and a below ground ruining sewer.
It’s said that among the duties or rather indignities required of the slave class, they were called upon to sit on the marble toilet seats during the cold seasons to warm them with their derrières so the royalty could sit comfortably when they had to poop.
It’s fantastic to imagine Ephesus as the city of 250,000 which in the first century was second only to Rome as the largest city in the world.
Ephesus reminds me of the Nabataean city of Petra which Emily and I visited in 2016 but Petra in the 1st Century was home to 20,000 while Ephesus was more than 10 times it’s size!
We then viewed the ruins of the Temple of Artemis one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Interestingly Turkey is also home of the ruins of the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus another of the 7 ancient wonders.
Then we saw the house where legend says Mary the mother of Jesus spent her final years.
The next day I toured Pumicale and the ruins of the ancient city of Heropolis including the entrance to Hades literally the “Gates of Hell” presided over by the g-d of the underworld Pluto.
After that a dip in the Pools of Cleopatra where Cleopatra allegedly bathed and whose magical waters are said to be the secret of her immense beauty. I feel like I’m more handsome already.
Tomorrow I’m looking forward to a boat tour of the Bosphorous, then a walking tour of Istanbul’s Old European Quarter including the Gálata (Genoa) Tower and Taksim Square. Turkey is an interesting enchanting wonderful place and I’m having the best time.
Note this episode’s feature photo of me and the happy expressive guy with the emphatic index finger, he asked me to deliver a message to President Biden that President Biden is admired and respected and that he loves the USA, the land of promise and opportunity.
