The Ancient City of Ephesus, Ripe Peaches, Storks, and the Basilica of St. John

June 29, 2008

Selçuk, Turkey and the Ancient City of Ephesus

(Matt)

Selcuk is an adorable little town in the hills and peach orchards along the Aegean coast, and it is not used by the package tours (something that will soon reveal itself as vitally important) as a base for visiting Ephesus (Efes), one of Turkey's most popular attractions. Not that Selcuk isn't touristy, but it has a very laid back and peaceful quality, with nice pedestrian boulevards and cobbled stone streets.

It is mostly full of local people doing local things, though this often includes things related to tourism, which is Turkey's third largest industry after agriculture (1st) and textiles (2nd). But the occasional carpet salesman and restaurant tout cannot diminish our enjoyment of strolling through the Selcuk and eating Turkish food, which threatens to fatten us up again.

(Amber)

Selcuk is peaceful and beautiful. It's full of local shops, and every corner is home to well-dressed Turkish men who sit and drink tea while playing games, mostly backgammon....all day, everyday.

The food is good, but it's definitely not the best we've had. Turkey is supposed to be a "regional heavy-hitter" for food, but so far, it hasn't lived up to the expectation for me. Jordan was just a really hard act to follow.

(Matt)

On our first full day after arriving, we did what most people do in Selcuk--we went to Ephesus. At its zenith, only Athens was more impressive, and it once the capital of Rome's Asian province. If you look at a map of Selcuk/Ephesus, you will see that Ephesus is very close to Athens, being just across the Aegean Sea. Ephesus, under the Greeks and Romans, was a major port for Anatolia, but nowadays the former bay is silted up. We actually went to the current beach of Pamucak, just down the valley from Ephesus, and it was only about a 5-10 minute drive from the ancient city to the sea. Ephesus was attacked and destroyed by the Goths in 262 AD.

Ephesus is about a 35-minute walk from Selcuk, so we walked it. The Fez bus employee, Nigel, told us that the site opened at 8am and that it was worth beating the crowds and the heat, but we summarily ignored this advice and slept in until almost 9am. After eating breakfast and walking to Ephesus, we arrived around 11am. It was getting really hot, and the tour buses were showing up at the same time.

We walked in, and it didn't seem too bad at first. We cruised along Harbour Street, which used to go to the water's edge, took some pictures of the milestones, and went to the first major attraction, the giant Greek theater. Built during the Hellenistic Period (3rd Century BC) on the slope of Mt. Pion, this is the largest ancient theater in Turkey. It was huge and could hold 24,000 people.

We got some pretty good pictures on this and moved along to go see the second major attraction of Ephesus, the Library of Celsus, built between 117 and 120 AD, restored between 1970 and 1978 AD. We saw other sights as well, including the 3rd Century BC Agora (market), Marble Street, the public latrines (no partitions), the Temple of Hadrian, and the Fountain of Trajan. All this would have been the focus of this blog entry but for one thing.....the hordes of package tourists that descended upon us at the Library of Celsus like locusts. They swarmed us with video cameras rolling, cameras flashing, and kids misbehaving. Meanwhile their tour guides, who were holding up sticks with numbers on them, tried to ignore the distractions and the heat and continue giving loud but thorough descriptions of Ephesus in numerous European languages. It was like a nightmare, and it was all around us. There was no escape.

(Amber)

It seemed like there were more tourists at Ephesus than we've seen in the last six months combined.....maybe twice as many. If this is what package tours are like, we've been right to avoid them all these years. I can't imagine that this is the only way so many people see the world. It was like Schlitterbahn (a waterpark in New Braunfels, Texas) on the Saturday before school starts. Or....Schlitterbahn without the fun of water and slides. That's what it was like.

Fast forward....I am writing this from Fethiye and am happy to report that this deluge of day-trippers was a one-time thing. I think it was either short-timers from Istanbul or cruise ships that dock nearby....but it is not at all a common scene in Turkey. Everywhere else we've been has been as quaint and pleasant as any place you can imagine. Whew.....

The majesty of ruins was for me destroyed by this level of package tourism and overcrowding. I've been to many touristy places (Buckingham Palace, The Vatican, The Thai Grand Palace, Venice, etc...) and never before have I seen anything like this. You can be in Rome, as Angela, mom, and I were...and feel like you're the only non Roman for miles, even if your not. Many places can swallow tourists and give you the feeling that you've discovered something new....even when you haven't.

I learned more on the walk to and from Ephesus (where we stopped and bought fresh picked peaches from a roadside stand) than I did dodging granddad's video camera arm at the site itself. The only place I've had a similar experience was during the summer in Vienna, and Matt and I promptly got on a bus out of there too. Oh well. It just confirmed that independent travel is the only way to go for us. Good news was that we didn't get any attention at all from touts. We laughed to think about the temples in India where we were like stars and were photographed by Indians more than the temples were because we were the only foreigners there.

That being said, the ruins were nice. One question though....who on Earth watches these videos that package tourists are famous for? I saw one man film a pillar for a good 5 minutes. You think he tortures the family on Christmas Eve with that jewel? The one I got of Matt hamming it up and hurting himself at the gorge while trying to be cute will be much more entertaining. I slid down a rock and told him it was fun. So he told me to get the camera, jumped down it, and almost broke his elbow. That...is a keeper.

(Matt)

It was like nothing we have ever experienced. There is only one road through the city of Ephesus really. So all tourists, hundreds of them and counting, were forced into one small space, some traveling in and some traveling out. It was truly a remarkable (and disturbing) experience.

From the Library of Celsus onward, I began photographing the hordes of tourists and not the ruins. It was insane and quite the opposite of most ruins we toured in India, and it made Petra look vacant in comparison...of course, Petra was vacant at the end of the day when we were there. We began regretting not listening to Nigel's advice.

Amber and I had a "runaway" and, after nudging our way through the crowds like it was the last half hour down on the floor before the beginning of a huge rock concert, we basically sprinted out of the madness and walked back to Selcuk, stopping only for peaches.

For the rest of the day, we walked around Selcuk, ate, had Turkish tea, drank a beer (called Efes, the other name for Ephesus), and enjoyed the fact that those tourists at Ephesus went to the resort town of Kusadasi about 20 kilometers away. The incident at Ephesus, a major site, just reinforces the fact that we are in Europe now and that Europeans are on their summer vacations. So you have to work hard to beat their tour buses to the sites.

While walking around Selcuk, we saw the other thing that the city is famous for, a population of big white storks that live on top of ruins and rooftops throughout the town, including the mosque across the street from our hotel.

(Amber)

Speaking of the mosque.....we figured out quickly that at 4:30am on the dot, one of us has to jump up and close the windows, which are double-paned and pretty much sound-proof. At this time and other set times throughout the day, the crooning from the speakers atop the minaret on the mosque cranks up for the whole city to hear. We are about 30 meters from the minaret, so it's really loud in our room. The middle of the night call to prayer has become a staple on this trip--we have been continuously in highly Islamic areas since arriving in Tanzania, and it is something that I know we'll miss when we leave. It is really quite soothing to us now.

(Matt)

I need to also add that the Selcuk muezzin, which is the man that calls the Muslims to prayer (performs the Adhan) from the minaret five times a day while facing Mecca, is especially dramatic in his singing. It is funny really. He goes to town. After hearing singing from mosques everywhere we have been, I can tell that this guy is really into his particular style of waling. Amber recorded him singing with the video feature of our camera. Hopefully, the singing will survive. Note from the future: all the Turkish muezzins throughout the country apparently give the call to prayer in this wild, frenetic, and almost comical way. Unlike the serious callers in Tanzania and India, these guys are hams. It is so different that it is hard not to crack up every time they do it. It is unlike anywhere else we have been.

(Amber)

Selcuk is a world away from Ephesus. It's quiet and peaceful. We spent the evening at a tea garden having apple tea while watching Turkish children run around and Turkish men play backgammon around a little pond. It's a great village and a beautiful country. And the peace....the lack of interest in us with the exception of some from random carpet sellers....is heavenly.

On our second full day in Selcuk, we got a local bus to a nearby beach called Pamucak on the Aegean and swam. It was quite cold but refreshing. There were many locals there. Some were camping out of vans with makeshift patios made from tarps. They were hanging out, grilling chicken, and looking like Turkish versions of a Mattison family reunion. Men wore swim trunks (not the tiny things worn by Europeans), were very tanned, and seemed to swim in groups.

One man with a large and tan belly "lifted weights" on the beach the whole time...without weights. He just made the motions but held only air. That's my kind of workout! Women tended to hang with the kids and swam in full dresses and headscarves. I saw one swimming in a dress down to her feet, a head cover, and floaties. It was hilarious.

The water was blue and cold, and it was a great way to cool down in midday summer heat.

(Matt)

We caught the mini-bus back to Selcuk, changed out of our swim gear, had great döner kebaps, one chicken (tavuk) and the other lamb (kuzu), and then headed to see the other sights of the city. Depending on the degree to which you are into Bible history, you might find our first stop, St. John's Basilica, particularly interesting. This is from a website:

The Basilica of St. John (St. Jean Aniti) was a great church in Ephesus constructed by Emperor Justinian in the 6th century. It stands over the believed burial site of St. John, who is identified as the apostle, evangelist (author of the Fourth Gospel) and prophet (author of Revelation).

The basilica is on the slopes of Ayasoluk Hill near the center of Selçuk, just below the fortress and about 3.5 km (2 miles) from Ephesus.

The basilica, which was enormous in the 500s AD, a cruciform structure with 6 domes, is mostly gone now after an earthquake in the 13th century. Now it looks similar to other Roman ruins of its generation, but the views from the site, which overlook the valley of peach orchards and Ephesus, is really gorgeous.

It was getting extremely hot, but we pressed on to the next site, Isa Bey Mosque, which can be seen clearly from the heights of St. John's Basilica. It was nice but not that old....I mean it was only constructed in 1374 AD. That's brand new in this part of the world.

(Amber)

Random thoughts:

• This land is very fertile. Olives, corn, sunflowers, rice, wheat, and peaches are just some of the lush crops that dot the hilly landscape. I've never eaten so much good fruit in my life.
• Water is heated with solar panels and stored in barrels on the roof. We've seen this setup on rooftops from Istanbul on, and it seems to work fine. There are also millions of satellite dishes.

For photos, click here: http://share.shutterfly.com /action/welcome?sid=8AatmbZk0Zt FIBg