Blogs from Selçuk, Aegean, Turkey, Middle East - page 3

Got to Istanbul a few days ago and found it to be the most awesome city I'd ever been to. If anyone asks me what makes it so awesome, I would have no answer. I can't pick anything specific about it. Everything is just...right. The food, the people, the sights, the bars... After spending a few days in Istanbul, I checked with other travelers that I met in the city and it seemed that the next logical destination is the ancient city of Ephesus. To get there, I would need to take a 12 hour bus ride south from Istanbul to Selcuk. I'm no stranger to long bus rides having taken many in South America and New Zealand but I was a little apprehensive about this one. Everybody said not to worry. The buses here are ... read more

Selcuk is a huge agricultural town, so breakfast today was all about fruit: honeydew melon, cherries, apples, apricots, you name it. On the way out to Ephesus this morning we drove right through all of the farms. The hotel offers free transportation out to the site, and I got to know the driver pretty well - he owns a carpet and tile store right next to the hotel. Ephesus is an absolutely massive ancient town. It has some of the best and most important ruins around, and you can really get a feel for life some 2500 years ago. It's most famous for the Library of Celsus, which has an incredible two-story facade still intact. Ephesus is also such an important place because this is where Christianity took hold and actually began to spread. It has ... read more

Having seen all of the major sites at Gallipoli on my guided tour on tuesday, I then re-visited them all with my new German roommate Daniel on wednesday (16th May), so as to see everything at my own pace and in doing so hopefully gain a greater appreciation of each place - which we did by taking a minibus to Kabatepe and then walking from site to site; followed by the fifteen kilometre trek back to the hostel in Eceabat. Thursday morning I took a ferry across the Dardanelles strait to Çanakkale, followed by a bus five hours south to the city of Izmir; and then finally a smaller bus one hour further south to the town of Selçuk - the site of both the Roman ruins of Ephesus and one of the seven ancient wonders ... read more

We took a one hour flight down to Izmir, caught atrain to selcuk just in time, and arrived at our hostel just before dark. In the morning we had breakfast at the hostel before takinga minibus out to the ruins at Ephesus. Theruins were pretty impressive, especially the Library, but I was a littledisappointed that they had done a lot of filling in with concrete. Some parts of the amphitheater were entirely... read more

We’ve had another day visiting building rubble. We visited the PMD ruins, properly known as Priene, Miletus and Didyma. These were 3 large cities close to Ephesus that existed at the same time as Ephesus. However, unlike Ephesus they don’t get much tourist traffic and so it is possible to have a reasonable wander around them without tripping over other people. They haven’t been excavated to the same extent as Ephesus and I think that the amount we were quoted was something like 2%. The first stop was at Priene which lies partly up a fairly steep and craggy hill. The main features of interest at Priene are the Temple of Athena and a theatre. The Temple of Athena sits in a position on the hill with good views out over the surrounding plain. There ... read more