Change In Plans

This short post is about our afternoon in Ephesus, Turkey.
Ephesus is an amazing historical site, and a “must see” destination for anyone visiting Turkey.

We had a long travel day on Friday: waking up early in Uchisar, Cappadocia, driving an hour to Kayseri, flying 90 minutes to Istanbul, laying over for 90 minutes, flying 45 minutes to Izmir (on Turkey’s west coast), and driving an hour to Ephesus.

We spent a few hours in the late afternoon in Ephesus, which has an extraordinary (and extraordinarily well preserved and presented) history.

Ephesus was settled by Hittites in about 1100 BC, and was ruled, variously, by Lycians, Lydians, Alexander the Great, and the Romans. Throughout, it was renowned as a multilingual, multicultural, multireligious, highly tolerant city. Apparently the “live and let live” ethos was driven by mercantile success and pursuit of great creature comforts.

The Greeks built the magnificent Temple of Artemis (one of the 7 wonders of the world). Artemis was the goddess of fertility. The statues of her with bull testicles all over her chest sort of make sense from a “Go Fertility!” perspective, but definitely look unusual.

The Romans made Ephesus the capital of Asia Minor, and built a great (12,000 scroll) library there. The fully excavated and reconstructed Roman merchants’ houses were remarkable: beautiful floor mosaics and frescoes.

We stood on the stage in the restored 25,000-seat outdoor theater. This was the same spot that the Greek tragedies were first performed, where Christians were fed to lions, and where gladiators fought to the death. It was also the same spot where St. Paul (the St. Paul) preached to a standing-room-only crowd of Ephesians. The story goes that a silversmith named Demetrios shouted Paul down, and turned the crowd against him, arguing that Christianity would be bad for business. Paul fled the stage and put himself in the protective custody of Roman soldiers before the crowd could tear him to pieces.

St. John the Theologian brought the Virgin Mary to Ephesus as she fled Roman persecution. She is believed to have died there of natural causes.

Ephesus was amazing. The care and scholarship of the Turks (with help) in excavating the city brings the history to life. We sat on the communal seats of a 2000-year-old public latrine (which freaked out our 8-year-old son). We walked the “stacks” of the ancient library, and read the inscriptions to the provincial governor, and to the emperors.

Our guide, Levent, was excellent overall. He was truly in his element in Ephesus, however, and captivated all four of us for as he explained and dramatized what we were seeing.

Caught up in the spirit of the moment, I picked and ate an olive from an ancient-looking tree. I found out that unprocessed olives are inedibly bitter - duh!

We were also fortunate that Ephesus was relatively deserted while we were there. Apparently, on days when multiple cruise ships pull in, as many as 11,000 visitors pile through the site. That would have changed the ambience a little.

After spending the night in a beachside hotel in nearby Kusadasi, we left the following morning for the four-hour drive down to Gocek (pronounced “GOO-chek”) to meet our boat and say goodbye to Levent.

This post is about some of the funny things that have happened in the last week or so. My writing skills are definitely challenged by trying to convey humor, so we will see how this goes.

1- The Museum Hotel in Cappadocia is a warren of 35 cave rooms, carved into the hillside, and connected by tunnels. The owner has a couple of small dogs who seem to have the run of the place. Tallulah became friendly with a small black spaniel, who was in and out of our cave/room all the time.

One afternoon, Zola and I came to our room, and found India and Lu trying to persuade the little dog to “go home.” I pointed out (helpfully) that the dog lived at the hotel, so he was already home, and asked why they didn’t just kick the dog out and close the door.

India explained that they needed to follow the dog to where he sleeps, because he had stolen something from Lu, and we needed to retrieve it. It turns out that the dog had swiped Tallulah’s favorite panties, the purple ones with Jasmine’s picture, and had been carrying them around in his mouth. Tallulah had been chasing him through the tunnels and public spaces, shouting “Give me back my panties, dog!”.

2- India and Lu asked the young woman at the bar to help in the pantie search. After a lot of discussion and gesturing (the bartender spoke zero English), it seemed that all was understood, and that the bartender would lead them to the thief’s lair.

Surprisingly, the bartender walked only a few paces, grabbed her cell phone, and then picked up Lu and put her on a stool. Then the bartender (like at least 20 other adults in Turkey) snapped a few photos of our daughter, tousled her hair, and gave her a kiss. Turkish adults seem to love Tallulah.

3- Last night, at Levent’s recommendation, we left our hotel and walked to dinner at a chicken restaurant in Kusadasi. The dinner was simple (chicken shish kebab, chicken wings, chicken stew, etc.) but very good. The best was the sesame flat bread that was cooked in an open-flame pizza oven, a process which the kids and I watched for a while. Throughout the dinner, the restaurant’s owner, an intense bird-like man in his 60s, waited on us very attentively.

For dessert, India ordered pistachio baklava, which came in a huge four-inch by four-inch block. When we finished eating it, and the owner came to our table for the hundredth time to check on us, I said, “The baklava was very good. Thank you, it was really excellent.”

The owner leaned over to me, raised his hand to his mouth, and winked. , In a heavily accented conspiratorial whisper he said,”Baklava ees Toorkish Viagra!”

More on Ephesus and the Turkish coast later.