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Published: October 30th 2012
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Kusadasi, Ephesus, Miletus and Didyma for the day -
Meeting really early for our excursion at Kusadasi Turkey. We are on a 7 to 8 hour tour to Ephesus, Miletus, lunch and Didyma. The Turkish countryside is beautiful and we come upon many fields of cotton. Our tour guide is excellent and gives us a lot of interesting information on the history and culture of Turkey. We are here for just the day. We arrive at Ephesus and make the transition through the ruins with our guide along with many stray cats and not too many tours happening this early in the morning....Bonus... I am wishing I had food in my pocket for the cats but it looks like someone is feeding them. The ruins are incredible and we are here early in the morning so the air is still cool, skies beautiful and sun is shining. Best time to see these sites before or after the heat of the day. Gorgeous and they are still excavating and we came across some work in progress. The view of the theatre was incredible. We only see a small portion of what is really here and love every minute of it. I try
to imagine what times were like when these cultures flourished and the infrastructure and communities they had created. Amazing. At the end we are given a brief show with music with gladiators performing along with dancers and King and Queen watching from their throne. It was very well done. Was able to stop in one of the shops and buy Aryn a purse.
We head to Miletus and the ruins and theatre are quite incredible as well with the history…seems to be my favourite word these days..incredible!…due to lack of money and the fact that during the rainy season it becomes quite swampy, we are told that it is difficult to keep up and to keep excavating at Miletus. I watch our driver give water to a very thin dog...again I wish I had food to hand out. What a kind man.
We move onto Didyma and have lunch at a restaurant overlooking the ruins…again we are joined by many stray cats…we meet some interesting people, some Canadians from Montreal, a couple from Arizona, the piano player who is helping with the tour and has been all over the world and signed up until 2016. He helps assist
with the tours and gets to see all the sites. We save some of our fish to feed the cats that are swishing under our feet…would like to stuff them in my bag and take them home. Mine don’t know how good they have it…mind you for the most part either do we….am learning, quickly! Didyma ruins were really interesting with a very large well preserved theatre. Although a very hot day, this excursion was so interesting and am so glad we got to see these sites and the countryside along the way. We stopped to see a carpet demonstration and watched a young women weaving and tying knots, very meticulous work and very time consuming. I am packing a very small camera this trip with extra batteries in the bag. No weighing down with cameras around my neck and packing lenses this trip. Will see how it goes. My little camera has a 20X optical zoom and with 32GB cards I can easily fit in the video as well. I tend to take a picture of my shadow at each country we stop in.
When we reached the port we tried to do some last minute shopping
as we made our way to the ship but not really enough time to look as the clock was ticking towards sail away. Missing the ship is just not on the agenda or budget. The haggling over prices is truly there and each shop keeper tries to pull us into their shop. Would have liked to have found some earrings from Turkey …will have to get Karen to look for me when she comes next fall. The port here is beautiful with a lot of boats coming and going. Went to the promenade deck and had my own little sail away… appropriately a turkey sandwich and took pics of the boats and shoreline. Very nice port. Hope to come back and see much more of Turkey…Tomorrow is Crete.
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