The Wonders of Selcuk

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December 11 - 15, 2006

Monday

After slicing inland to Pamukkale from the Mediterranean we cut back to the coast and the Bodrum Peninsula on the Aegean coast that is home to the town of Bodrum. Tourism is the local business in Bodrum, although we were told that the town retains a little more of its unique charms than other coastal cities overrun by tourism.

We arrived in Bodrum after dark and navigated the narrow streets and crappy map in our guidebook to Mars Hotel which our previous innkeeper in Pamukkale had recommended. The neighborhood where Mars is situated seems to house a lot of guesthouses and is an easy amble down to the Salmakis Bay waterfront and its many attractions (bars, restaurants, bars, clubs, bars…). After getting situated we headed out to get something to eat and walked around the harbor area and some of the narrow arcades. Bodrum offers a surplus of higher end eateries and neon but, particularly after our two days in Pammukale, seemed to have lost some of its Turkish flavor.

A local map said there was an Arby’s among the alleyways but we couldn’t find it (we really, really looked, though). Ultimately we settled on what looked to be a fairly touristy place on the waterfront that was kind of expensive but was pretty decent. As usual, we found the hospitality and service to be excellent.

Tuesday

Our plan for Tuesday was to explore the town’s underwater museum and the Castle of St. Peter that sits perched on a small piece of land that separates Salmakis Bay and Kuhmbace Bay, a stunning sight visible from either waterfront area’s beachcomber bars. The day’s heavy rain and a general apathy about Bodrum overcame us, however, and we opted instead to catch a morning bus to Selcuk. Our bus roared out of town about 11am and we agreed that we would not tell anyone that we spent a mere 17 hours in Bodrum.

We arrived in Selcuk in the late afternoon and marched from the bus station to the lovely and accommodating Hotel Bella. That night we ate at Ege Koftecisi, which was very good, before spending some time at an internet café and wandering around the Selcuk city center which appeared to be undergoing a good deal of modernization.

We were excited to be in Selcuk for a few days to explore the town’s ample historic offerings. Today the town has roughly 24,000 people, though two thousand years ago the nearby ancient Roman city of Ephesus was home to more than 250,000 and was the largest Roman city not named Rome.

Wednesday

One of the managers at Hotel Bella happened to be heading to Sirince and was kind enough to drive us the 30 minutes to the old Greek hillside village. A short mile outside of Selcuk and we were surrounded by steep rolling hills covered in olive trees. We snaked our way into and over the hills and descended into Sirince, a picturesque village clinging to a hillside overlooking a marvelous valley.

Sirince was once an Ottoman Greek village and bears several trademarks of that period, both in the architectural styles of the homes and the centralized Christian church, presumably infrequently used by the Turkish Muslims that now inhabit the area. Sirince is a perfect visual example of what made up the Ottoman Empire in this region (the Sultan’s subjects were far from homogenous in terms of race, ethnicity, or religion). During the establishment of the Turkish Republic and following many heated battles with Greece both countries agreed to a large scale population swap in 1924, Turks moving from the far former reaches of the Empire, now belonging to Greece, to Turkey, in many cases directly into the homes of Greeks relocating out of Turkey.

We arrived fairly early in the village and found it to be very quiet. For almost an hour we walked up and down the various cobblestoned hills seeing more local cats and dogs than people. As we completed what seemed like a natural loop and returned to the small town square where we would catch a minibus back to Selcuk we saw a different village than we entered an hour before, this one filling with tourists and with a decent number of visitor oriented shops open and selling candy and baubles. We had lunch and stopped in a wine-tasting pub to try a couple of glasses of the local wine in pomegranate and cherry flavors before catching the bus back.

Our experience upon returning to our hotel neatly mirrors our experience in Turkey in general. The attractive Hotel Bella with its warm, relaxed staff sits directly across a small street from the ruins of the Basilica of St. John, a memorial church built upon John’s grave in the 6th century, itself upon the site where the apostle wrote his gospels.
We paid a small fee to a man near the gate to the site of the Basilica and explored the half-walls and crumbling eaves amidst the still visible cross-shaped layout of the church.

The history of Turkey is complex, to be sure, but you can barely venture out without seeing the country’s blend of old and new, religious and secular, progressive and traditional. We took great joy in staying in a hotel across the street from the hill where John wrote his gospels, even if the rooftop café was a bit nippy in the December air….


Thursday

Perhaps the most popular of Selcuk’s variety of tourist attractions is the ancient city of Ephesus, the most well preserved classical city in the eastern Mediterranean. One of the staff from our hotel provided a ride to the far end of the ancient city first thing in the morning and we entered just ahead of several large busloads of tourists. The wealth of ruins and the sprawling scope of the city soon allowed us some distance and peace as we explored the various avenues, alleyways and structures of the city.

We walked Curetes Way taking in the variety of ruins on each side, the dead city still bearing some resemblance to an actual city and not a patch of tumbled rock. At the end of Curetes Way we explored the magnificent Library of Celsus, an impressive structure that once contained 12,000 scrolls and still contains a number of beautiful carvings. From the library we turned and walked down the marble Sacred Way, passing a variety of buildings and a market until we reached the Great Theatre. A theater existed on this spot from Hellenistic times and was rebuilt to hold 25,000 people between AD 41 and AD 117.

From the theater we walked a section of the grand marble Harbour Street, the wide 600 meter stretch of marble blocks and colonnades still a spectacular sight after more than 1500 years. Next we visited the Church of the Virgin Mary, also known as the Double Church. Over the years a variety of structures has existed on this spot, which was also the location of the Ecumenical Council of 431.

We left the city and passed through a gauntlet of tea shops and souvenir vendors. Having started at the far end of Ephesus and leaving on the Selcuk side we were a straight 3 kilometers along the road to Selcuk. As if the ruins of Ephesus were not enough for visitors impressed by ancient history the road took us right passed the ruins of the Temple of Artemis. The original temple was destroyed in 356 BC and was rebuilt to become one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. While there is not much to see here other than a rebuilt column with a large bird’s nest on it, the significance of this otherwise indistinct field between the awesome ruin of Ephesus and present day Selcuk serves only to emphasize the wealth of history crammed into western Turkey.

Not content to do anything less than completely binge on ancient history we decided to spend the remainder of the afternoon exploring yet another nearby attraction locally called Meryemana, the Muslim term for Mother Mary, eight kilometers from town and five kilometers from Ephesus. One of the staff from the hotel drove us to the site which is believed to be the location of the final home of Mary (no last name needed). There is not much speculation as to the veracity of the story to a point. According to the Ecumenical Council of 431, the local oral tradition passed down by the villagers of Kirkidje, and with some archaeological evidence, following the crucifixion John took Mary to the largest Roman city outside of Rome, Ephesus, where she lived the remainder of her days in the wooden hills overlooking the city. Ancient texts are not very specific about the location of Mary’s actual dwelling but it was known to be within a limited breadth of the area.

The location and discovery of the specific site leaves room for skeptics as to whether this may be the location of Mary’s home. A 19th century text details the visions of Anna Catherina Emmerich, an invalid and stigmatized nun, who in her life never left the borders of Germany. The nun’s detailed description of the Ephesus hillside and the dwelling was so specific as to inspire a pair of scientific expeditions to the region. The delegations discovered the remnants of a home with a floor plan exactly like that Mary was reputed to have maintained. Investigations by the Catholic Church and others led Pope Paul VI to proclaim the site’s authenticity in 1967 and today a small Roman-style two room chapel exists on the foundation that was discovered. The chapel and the immediate area of olive and evergreen trees, including a fresh water spring, has become a place of commemoration, worship, and pilgrimage for Christians and Muslims.

A visit to the shrine is free though there is a park fee of around 6 Euro, for road maintenance, levied by the Selcuk government to enter the area. Upon entry and passage of a stall selling Christian curios we walked up the narrow walk among the olive trees until we could see the squat stone building located on the site of Mary’s home. The site is maintained by a specific order and we were able to shuffle into the building without dealing with any crowd or lines of people. The outer room, a small chapel, would accommodate a few visitors at a time and the second room was open strictly to one person at a time. The atmosphere of the chapel and the interior room was very peaceful and still and we were fortunate to have been able to enjoy it with little hustle and bustle from other visitors. The only thing that ruined the sublimity of the moment was one of the patrolling nuns matter-of-factly snuffing out and removing a number of prayer candles left by visitors.

We walked the grounds of the chapel and along the stone wall and spring water fountains below. We ran the water from the spring over our hands and faces before heading back to the hotel’s van, awed to have walked where it is quite possible Mary herself had been some 2,000 years ago. To Amy’s chagrin the van’s driver, a young man skeptical of everything from Biblical history to dinosaur bones and the Moon landing, managed to lure Roger into a fruitless and frustrating discussion on the ride back, not exactly the peaceful end to an incredible day of exploring.

Friday

Before catching our bus to Cannakale we spent the morning in the Epheseus Museum, a museum that has earned its reputation as a comprehensive and worthwhile companion to the amazing ruins up the road. We spent an hour looking over beautiful statuary, artifacts, and samples of architecture and tile work, all of which was well labeled and detailed as to exactly where in Ephesus they were found. One of the temporary exhibits on the life and times of gladiators was enjoyable and illuminating, the harsh lives of the warrior slaves mirroring the worst combination of servant, soldier, martyr and professional wrestler.

The wealth of ancient sites, fantastic ruins, and Biblical history makes Selcuk a must-stop if you are roaming Turkey. Our terrific hotel and the staff at Hotel Bella made us feel right at home and it was easy to explore the city and its remarkable offerings.

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Photos

The Temple of Artemis (Ruins)
To the left of the column you can see the Church of St. John on the hill overlooking the Temple.

Sirince
The old Greek church is visible in the center of the photo.

If You See These, Eat Them!
Dough, honey, nuts? Yummy.

Comments

[Joy]

Potty Mouth!
Hilarious photos of the "WC" sign and Roger enjoying it the old fashioned way. So did you have to pay for the "atmosphere" on the old school style WC?