Cesme, Turkey

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July 13th: Local Tour of Turkey Meets Pedestrian Cruise Ship

Forced poor Mengu to drive two hours from Cesme to Ephesus on the scenis route that runs along the coast. More picturesque views of a coast line that is as jagged as a broken window. Mengu tells us that the coastline is longer on this side because of the many inlets created by the making of the mountains here.

HHI: Level 4 - heat is moderated by a fresh breeze from the Aegean Sea. Fantastic.

Ran a moderated gauntlet of shopkeeper's into the ticket office for Ephesus, an ancient harbor city of about 200,000 people. Tara and Megu apeased us by traveling with us to see the site, a year to the day of thir first visit to this locale. The place was deceptively large and the site hosts a humorous gladiator act for the tourists, replete with jeering and hurrahs for the loser and winner, respectively. Thrown in was the token Nubian slave and corpulent emperor - and you've visualized what we saw. Got in about 11,000 steps on the Tara-ped, so we rewarded ourselves with a giant Turkish lunch in Kusadasi in the harbor, not far from where the cruise boat was harbored for the day. Damn tourists kept getting underfoot and into our photographs...

Drove the 'fast' way back (all of 15 minutes quicker), but a much smoother and well-maintained road offered a more pleasant ride in the rental care we nicknamed "Miser' due to the fact that we were able to travel all over this area on less than a tank of gas.

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