28 MAY to 7 JUNE
Well the Temple of Apollo at Didyma was terrific but Ephesus was simply the very best. What a wonderful city this must have been - surely the leading city in the world at that time. for us it was a bit like visiting Pompeii and getting a feel for life in Roman times but Ephesus was even more impressive - such a feeling of the power, wealth and advanced society of Roman times. Walking down Ceteres street to the Celsus library - what a magnificent experience. Great pity to think of the records lost when the library was destroyed. We had a guide for our tour which I think is worthwhile - make sure you get one that speaks good English; our guide spoke perfect English - at least to say "good morning, would you like a guided tour of Ephesus". Otherwise his English was almost unintelligible! (I should add that my Turkish is limited to good morning, please and thank you - despite my "learn one word a day" target.) However, we did pick up bits of information we'd never otherwise have discovered. And we hope to go back - especially as we didn't have time to visit the house where apparently the Virgin Mary (who came here with St john) lived until she died here. Nor were we able to visit the museum which was closed.
our dinner in Kusadasi - dinner in a pot
We visited Ephesus with Geoff and Shirley who had arrived in Kusadasi on Friday. After we left Didim we'd stopped for a night in St nicolas bay (small beautifully remote, unspoilt bay) next to St paul's bay where he'd reportedly stopped for the night en route to Ephesus to allow his oarsmen to rest (its generally upwind heading north along this coast). Well for us the wind quite often seems uncooperative and indeed during the night it got up quite a bit from the south - directly into the bay. so not the best night's sleep (as the bay was very small and we didn't have much room to swing at anchor) and we left very early next morning for Kusadasi. The route took us between Samos in greece and the Turkish coast - only one mile at the narrowest point! Kusadasi was a much nicer town than we'd expected. It is a tourist town/cruise ship port but the marina has added a very modern high quality shopping/bar/restaurant development and the town has good shops, restaurants etc. Including of course the ubiquitous Irish bar where we managed to see some of the british Lions rugby match! Seems to be a large northern european (particularly British) retired expat population here attracted by the beautiful weather and low cost of living.
We visited Ephesus with Geoff and Shirley who had arrived in Kusadasi on Friday. After we left Didim we'd stopped for a night in St nicolas bay (small beautifully remote, unspoilt bay) next to St paul's bay where he'd reportedly stopped for the night en route to Ephesus to allow his oarsmen to rest (its generally upwind heading north along this coast). Well for us the wind quite often seems uncooperative and indeed during the night it got up quite a bit from the south - directly into the bay. so not the best night's sleep (as the bay was very small and we didn't have much room to swing at anchor) and we left very early next morning for Kusadasi. The route took us between Samos in greece and the Turkish coast - only one mile at the narrowest point! Kusadasi was a much nicer town than we'd expected. It is a tourist town/cruise ship port but the marina has added a very modern high quality shopping/bar/restaurant development and the town has good shops, restaurants etc. Including of course the ubiquitous Irish bar where we managed to see some of the british Lions rugby match! Seems to be a large northern european (particularly British) retired expat population here attracted by the beautiful weather and low cost of living.
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