Ephesus, Selcuk & back to Istanbul, Turkey 10/31-11/1/2006

Pics are:  Ayse, our Turkish guide; Temple of Hadrian in Ephesus; Weathly home w/mural painted walls; Mosaic floor of wealthy home; The latrine @ Ephesus; Christianity evidence in this pagan city; Janeen in front of the library @ Ephesus; Footprint leading to the brothel; View of Ephesus main road, left is the Agora, to the back right is the theatre; The ancient Agora; the theatre where St. Paul preached Christianity; Mary's House; Statue of the Virgin Mary; Statue of Artimis in the museum in Selcuk; Fountain in Selcuk; My Turkish carpet; Nazmi loading the tobacco in the hookah;  Me smoking the hookah; The Turkish Bath sign in Istanbul; Changing room in the Turkish Bath; Our last lunch in Istanbul..........Up by 7, showered and down to breakfast of egg, bread, cheese, tomatoes, olives and cherry jam plus coffee.  The coffee is nescafe.....UGG!  Janeen goes to mail her package.  We leave our cases at the desk and the guy is uploading our memory cards to his computer.  He'll copy to cds for us of the pictures later and we'll pick the cds up upon returning to Selcuk to pick up our cases.  Ayse picks us up late, so the guy does all 4 memory cards.  She gives me our bus tickets for tonight back to Istanbul.  We're on the tour bus to Ephesus, called Efes by the Turks.  This area of Turkey was referred to as Asia Minor and Turkey was called Anatolia in the ancient world.  There were 4 cities of Ephesus, the first city was small and on top of the hill in the year 2000 BC, founded by the Amazons, all female warriors in Greek mythology, and settled by Corians (the inhabitants of Caria in SW Anatolia) and Lelegians (aboriginal people of SW Anatolia) .  The second city was settled by the Greeks at the mouth of the river Menderes in Western Anatolia and was the richest city in the 11th C. BC.  It was 3k outside of this city.  Androclos, son of Kadros, the emperor from Athens, started this city which was in honor of the Greek God and Goddess Apollo and Athena.  The Temple of the Mother Goddess Kybele was here and later called The Temple of Artemis, one of the seventh wonders of the world.  It was near Sardis, a gold mining town and a very rich city, starting point of the gold route also a port city.  The city was burned down by the Symarian people and in the 6th C. BC the Greeks fought against the Symarians.  The same nite the Symarians burned the city, Alexander the Great was born in Macedonia.  The Persians had divided Anatolia into 4 sections and placed harsh rules and taxes on the Greeks.  War broke out between the Persians and the Greeks with the Anatolians in the 4th C. BC.  Alexander the Great became the ruler and savior of the city.  He had the same beliefs as Artemis and built a new temple in her name.  The city was a center for art and culture and was a lite city.  They used olive oil lamps.  There were 2 other lite cities at this time, Anatolia and Alexandria.  Alexander the Great died at 33 in Iran and was taken to Alexandria in a gold sarchophi.  The 3rd. city was built by Macros who destroyed the main sewage system in the second city, so the people fled to his city.  It was part of the Pergamon Kingdom, also settled by the Greeks.  The Romans came into control and put harsh rules and taxes against the Greeks.  Ephesus had marble everywhere as there were marble mines near.  During the Roman times it was a pagan city.  57 AD St. Paul came to Ephesus to inform people of Christianity and preached in this theatre that holds 25,000 people.  St. Paul and his believers were stoned and St. Paul was imprisoned and was killed in Rome.  Mary had been entrusted to St. John, who was responsible for growing Christianity in Asia Minor, and brought Mary here to live.  She was safer here in Ephesus than in Jerusalem.  Parts of the city were settled by the Christians but it was still a pagan city.  You can see crosses in the Christian areas in the city.  In the 2nd. C. AD there were 200,000 people living here.  By the 4th C. AD Ephesus was losing it's power.  It was abandoned eventually because of Arab soldiers and malaria.  The 4th city was settled by the Turkish people.  15% of this ruin site has been excavated.  The British first came here in 1869.  The ancient ruins have the Roman Bath at the entrance and exit for cleansing because of malaria.  The city is laid out in 4 different areas, political, religious, cultural and social.  The British, Germans and Austrians have done most of the archaeological work here.  The summer is very hot here, 42c (108f), so many tours are in the evening in this time of year.  The ram horns on the Ionic columns represent or is the symbol for fertility.  There was a hospital here and the famous ancient doctor Galen worked here mostly using opium.  The library has 4 statues symbolizing Justice, which is wisdom, virtue, knowledge and faith.  The library goes back to the beginning of the 2nd C. AD.  The ruin site is set up in 4 sections, political, religious, cultural and social.  The library being in the cultural section.  On the marble street there is a carved stone with a footprint showing the way to the brothel, this dates from the 4th C. AD.  Careful health control dominated the brothel even more than in today's brothels.  The men first washed and cleaned their hands and feet before entering a large salon thru a hallway.  This house, which had every kind of facility for cleanliness, was dedicated to Venus (Aphrodite) and there were statuettes of her that used to stand in the salon.  The walls were covered with marble.  The Temple of Hadrian had carved heads of Medusa above the arches and carved relief of people to the right of the arch and on the pillar a carved relief of a musical instrument honoring Apollo.  There is a carved relief of Nike, The Goddess of Victor.  She holds a wreath made from laurel leaves, an emblem of victory, in her left hand and a stalk of wheat in her right hand.  She is in a flying position.  This comes from the Roman period and Nike has take their insignia from this relief.  I filmed this statue to show the Nike symbol in her flowing clothing but the picture did not turn out.  We see a crew filming a documentary on "Civilization" in the theatre.  It's a British film company and they hope to have this film showing a year from now.  We have to wait a bit before we can go into the theatre and view the ruin site while they finish their filming.  I am hoping to see this documentary on PBS but so far nothing.  From here we go to see the houses of the rich people and pay an additional fee to get in.  The houses are built up on a hill and have beautiful mosaic tile floors.  I photographed most.  The walls were all mural-painted originally and you can see evidence of this work.  These were across from the Temple of Hadrian.  Across from these wealthy houses is the lantrin area.  They are in a row, in marble with the toilet holes, side-by-side.  In the ancient times, the wealthy people sent their slaves down to sit on the marble and warm the seats for them.  We leave the site and go to visit Mary's House.  They rebuilt the chapel in 1951.  We go inside and walk around outside.  I drink from the sacred fountain.  It is thought that she died here.  Back in Selcuk we tour the museum where we see the film crew again, filming the famous statue of Artemis.  From here we walk towards our hotel and up a busy street.  I recognize where I had dinner the night before and go looking for the carpet shop Marie from the Gallipoli tour had told me about next to Hotel Bella.  I go into the shop and Nazmi, the owner, helps me.  I buy a beautiful rug from him for $600 and it costs $67 to send it home.   He gives each of us a choice of a carpet bag and we go to the restaurant and bar on top the Hotel Bella for coffee and tea invited by Nazmi.  I also have a beer and smoke the hookah with him.  The tobacco is flavored with apple.  Rose and Tamara from Australia are here and while I'm smoking Sara, Cheryl and Kristen come in.  They are American from DC and Virginia.  Sara joins us smoking.  Have several photos.  We go back to the Artemis Hotel to get our bags and cds.  Have to catch the bus @ 9:30 p.m. from Selcuk to istanbul.  I sit in the lounge area of the hotel and drink the rest of my wine and eat my left over food.   The guy doesn't have the cds done and is not here.  Another guy calls him to come back and copy them.  He does and we leave for the bus station.  A nice stay in this lovely town of Selcuk.  I would come back here and stay in the Hotel Bella.  We're on the bus headed for Istanbul.  The bus is pretty full and hardly no one speaking English.  Sleeping is rough, even though the seats are nice.  I go to the back on the empty seats later in the evening and sleep fairly well until a fellow wakes me up and I have to move back to my seat.   It's now Wednesday, November 1, and we get into Istanbul's main bus station in heavy morning traffic around 9 a.m.  They did serve beverages and small cakes in a sealed bag on the bus.  I had a glass of coke and 2 small cakes.  Janeen was sleeping and missed it all.  I missed the serving of hot beverages.   We get off the bus, get our bags and get on another free-service bus thinking we are going to the metro.  Instead he drops you at your individual location, us it was the Sirkeci Train Station, where the famous Orient Express comes into Istanbul and very near the hotel we stayed in while in Istanbul earlier.  We walk to the Hotel Akcinar and leave our bags, organizing quite a bit.  I decide I need to send a package home so get it together.  I try to get money prior to this with no luck.  I'm so mad at this bank.  Janeen loans me more money so I can mail the package.  Now we go to get some food.  Stop at a street cafe and check all 3 cafes there in a row.  Pick the middle one.  Sit down and start looking at the menu when they put 4 plates of mezi on the table, tatzeki, red pepper spread, eggplant grilled and a tomato- like pica de giya and bread.  Then they place a plate with sliced grilled chicken and rice.  I comment that I wanted lamb and they say they have none.  We have not given them our order yet they just decide we'll have the "mezi" of the day.  Well, we are so hungry we just start eating the food.  We finish and they bring the bill.  It is 32YTL and we have a fit.  Janeen only wants to pay 7 each and I say just leave 20 and go!  That is what we do after protesting!  We are really thru with Istanbul now!!!  Go to check on the harem costume for the girls and he doesn't have them.  He's so full of it.  Janeen buys some cheap slippers.  I tell her I'm going to the Turkish Bath with my left over American dollars, as they take Euros, Turkish Lira or American dollars here in Istanbul.  The bath is great, $38.  It's 300 years old.  You go into an area with dressing rooms all around a courtyard-like room and a marble fountain in the middle.  They give you a room to change out of your clothes and a towel to wrap in.  Then have you put these stupid wood oriental-looking  sandles with a rubber tire strap across the front of your foot.  Take you to the white-marble doomed steam room.  Now you sit by a marble sink, naked with constant running hot water overfloowing.  Actually both hot and cold are running into this sink and running over so you can splash your face with cold , which I did.  The lady tells you to pour water over you.  You sit there for quite awhile splashing yourself with hot water.  Finally she comes for me and take me to the Turkish Gobek Tasi (center heated marble table).  Now she rubs you with some water and calls it a dry massage.  There may have been some oil or something in the water, I couldn't tell.  Your lying on this warm marble slab and she is washing and massaging you.  Then she sends you back to the sink where you rinse as before by the overflowing marble sink.  Now she takes you back to the marble slab and washes you with very soapy water and massages, one side, turn, other side.  It is truly a wonderful experience.  Then you rinse the same way and she takes you out of the steam room where you get wrapped in a huge Turkish white towel and taken back to the room you changed in.  The Cagaloglu Hamami (The Turkish Bath) was a gift to the city in 1741 from Sultan Mehmet I and it is believed that King Edward VIII, Kaiser Wilhelm II, Franz Liszt and Florence Nightingale have all visited the bath.  Tony Curtis unquestionably did.  Baths were a public utility because of water shortage and provided a perfect marriage between the Koran's demand for cleanliness and the pleasure of corporal indulgence in a beautiful setting.  Today even though Turkish homes have adequate plumbing, the bath remains a social institution.  The penalty for a man discovered in the woman's bath used to be death.  These days you can escape with your life.  Expect to find the men's and the women's bath separately housed in interiors that have not changes much since the Ottoman (The royal Turkish family) days.  The bath is open from 8-10 for men and 8-8 for women everyday, including Sundays.  I leave the bath feeling wonderful and stroll back to the Hotel Akcinar, stopping to buy belly dancing outfits for the girls, sultan red for Sage and pink for Sienna.  I also buy a scarf or hip-wrap for Nancy Tomaski that has jingle coins on it for her belly dancing and a magnet turned-up toe Turkish shoe.  Back to Hotel Akcinar to get things together.  I buy a bracelet with my last 5YTL.  We say goodbye to our great hosts at Akcinar and head for the Sirkeci Train Station.  I take some last minute shots of the Orient Express lounge and restaurant area and we board the train for our overnight to Thessaloniki, Greece.  The returning compartment 41 & 43 is not as nice, smaller, no sink but comfortable chairs in an older car.  Only the beds are in place.  We raise my top bunk till bedtime and sit eating the food we've brought on board and me drinking the last of my wine.  To bed and sleep very well.  We're able to slightly open the window for fresh air.  It's Thursday, November 2, and we're up and dressed and into Thessaloniki around 8:15 a.m.............Thessaloniki and returning to Athens, Greece next.............