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Published: February 20th 2010
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19th Feb, 2010
Today when we arrived in sunny (temp in the 70’s) Izmir, Turkey, just like when we arrived in Greece, we noticed dust that looked like smog, but the locals call it yellow dust, but apparently it comes from Africa and is blown across the Mediterranean. This dust obstructs your long range vision and the landscape looks hazy. From Izmir we made our way to a small town near Ephesus. Our first stop was a carpet weaving store where they make handmade carpets from wool, cotton and the silkworm. They tried to sell us one hand woven silk carpet for $7,000.00, shipped free to our door, sounded a little expensive, however when you consider that it took a year to make and contained 400 double knots per square inch, who are we to say it wasn’t worth the $7,000.00 (do the math at $10.00 an hour for a year, yikes). Of course we would have gotten a discount because we were buying from the factory. We bowed out of the carpet tour and headed for the leather factory. WOW!!! This store makes jackets for a lot of the upscale European retailers. We saw some price tags at 1800 Euros
(1 Euro = $1.50 Canadian). Of course Noel and Gerrie had to buy a leather jacket, (these jackets are made from what’s called silk leather, and we have never felt anything so soft) Oh yeah, bought a leather purse too, suffice it to say, I will be working for a looooooong time. Hopefully Jason will be happy.
After our expenses, we had to go and repent at the house of the Virgin Mary, which was nearby. While there, Gerrie picked up some holy water and some candles. Virgin Mary’s house is located high on a hill, it is believed this is where she spent her last years. Gerrie needed direction to Mary’s house. No, Gerrie didn’t drink the water, (bringing home for all you sinners, we don’t know if our one little bottle will cover everyone who we hold near and dear to us), (yeah it’s only 500 mls). Upon collecting the Holy Water we came across the wishing wall, unfortunately for us it was full (see photo). Upon leaving the Virgin Mary’s house and feeling so much better about ourselves, we went to the decadent City of Ephesus which is just down the hill. Population was as much as
250,000. This is where the young scholars, engineers, students, learned masters, leaders would study until they needed distraction upon which they would head to the brothel for a little massage to another part of their body (we’re not sure how often they partook in this distraction, maybe this is why it took them hundreds of years to build anything, but they were happy campers).
This by far has been the greatest tour thus far of ancient ruins and we had an excellent guide, took approx. 150 photos of the site, along with some video. Gerrie’s camera ran out of power while there. The original roads/walkways are made of marble and it was a unique feeling to walk the same path as the ancient Romans as they went about their business. Noel had the opportunity to sit on the same throne as thousands of Romans did in the distant past (see pic). The thrones were open air, guess you’d want to have that; they didn’t have fans back in those days.
There are no words to describe the feeling you get viewing these ancient ruins and seeing their workmanship in building their City. It was so sad to see the ruin
and destruction perpetrated by conquering armies.
We departed Ephesus and travelled on to Pine Bay for lunch at a 5 star hotel. You’d almost think we were dining at a fancy restaurant in Vancouver. After lunch, it was back on the bus and we made our way back to the ship which took about 1 hour.
We had an excellent dinner at Alazar Restaurant on board the ship.
20 February 2010
Today is another day at sea, chance to kickback, read, do suduko and wonder through the ship. It’s a lazy day.
We are going to a show and then dinner at the Grand Pacific Restaurant.
Next stop Egypt and the pyramids.
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