Mighty Temple Of Artemis

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After a late night and a couple of bad nights sleep in a row I opted to stay in bed whilst Rob went to breakfast. I didn't sleep much but when Rob came back we took our time getting up and ready.

Once up, we strolled down the road to see one of the seven ancient wonders of the world. Ok, well it used to be one of the wonders but now all that is left is a pillar and plenty of stones. Anyway we had a look and took the obligatory photos and then climbed up to the top of the site. As we were climbing up, Rob caught sight of a tortoise just walking up the hill to the top of the ruins. We followed it around for a while until it seemed panicked and moved faster than we thought possible away from us.

The road leading back to Selcuk had equipment to work out with and there were two old men using it. We decided to stop a while and have a go.

The Efes museum had been recommended for a visit after seeing the sight so we went in. It was actually quite interesting because the statues etc related to places we had just visited. We spent slightly longer in there than we anticipated and as we were leaving we saw an exhibition about Roman gladiators which was really interesting.

Outside the museum we sat down with our guidebook and tried to figure out where we should go after Selcuk. We both want to stay here an extra night because there are extra things that we want to see and also because we are really enjoying the hostel and its owners. We have a few places in mind that we would quite like to visit but we would also love to see the Fenerbahce versus PSV Eindhoven game in Istanbul on the 7th. At the hostel Juju was there and gave us something to think about for getting to Istanbul in time.

It was too early to go for food so we took the remains of our black mulberry wine and a bar of chocolate up to the roof terrace to sit for a while. We put on some music and sat and looked out onto the illuminated castle. I wrote for a while whilst Rob poured over our books to catch up on the history of Turkey and to figure out our next moves.

We decided to think more about our plans over dinner which we ate two doors down at a café on the corner of the road. Thanks to our recommended restaurant on the first night, we now no longer are in the dark on how to eat at typical Turkish cafes. You just walk in and pick a couple of dishes from the ones in a counter somewhere and they put them all on a communal plate and bring out a big bowl of bread. I picked some vegetable dishes and Rob got a slab of meat to go with his.

We got back to the hostel and spent a while looking up some of our ponderings from the notebook. We also finally got around to updating our travelblog which has been severely neglected recently. Not due to laziness of course but in part because our hosts have kept us busy and in part because the internet is usually busy here.

Around midnight we felt tired and so decided to go for a quick walk around the town before bed. It is weird that even in a small town the streets never seem to be entirely empty. We are being recognised by locals around the town who smile when we walk past. It is all very nice and comfortable and we really are in no hurry to leave. We didn't get quite the early night we planned as when we got back to the hostel, Jimmy invited us to watch the best bits of Mr. Bean, which we did. We are still completely undecided as to what we are doing tomorrow but we have already stayed one night extra here. We will get up early tomorrow and decide then. Night night. Stob.

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Photos

As Turkish As Turkish Can Be
only missing the çay