Turkey Part II - Charging for the Ionian Ruins

From Istanbul we headed towards the ancient city of Ephesus, via plane, taxi and mini bus (aka dolumus), settling in the nearby town of Selcuk. It was a tall order for Ephesus to live up to the hype, but it succeeded. The ruins included an intact coliseum, an imposing library façade, finely engraved Ionic columns, and unearthed terrace houses complete with sculptures, mosaics, marble floors and bathtubs. Despite the blazing sun and lamentable lack of shade, we happily explored the expansive ruins for a good four hours before walking (of course) back to our hotel.

Selcuk itself was underwhelming, but our warm and welcoming hotel with its beautiful rooftop terrace overlooking St John’s church and the local castle more than compensated. We enjoyed two delicious and entertaining dinners at the hotel. The best part was the “pre-game show” in which an eccentric Turkish waiter helped us to chose our mezzes from a selection of nearly 20 mostly vegetarian dishes (eggplant galore!) on display. Our enthusiasm for the food was rewarded on the last morning when the cook provided impromptu cooking lessons as well as a parting gift of his special spice mix.

During our stay we also visited the local Hamam (Turkish bath). Chana grinned gleefully throughout the scrubbing and sudsing sessions, but the process was a bit more concerning for me. As the hairy Turkish man peeled off layers of my skin, I thought hard to recount from physiology exactly how many skin layers there are in the human body. The oil massage finale was the best part, although I drew the more brutal of the masseurs and left with some body parts feeling better and others feeling worse.

From Selcuk we rented a horribly underpowered Fiat and drove south to visit two other famous ruins: Priene and Miletus. We were among the only tourists to brave the heat and the hilly ascent to Priene, giving us a rare chance to pose amongst dramatic Greek ‘props’. Miletus was especially exciting on account of the ancient philosophers that had lived there: Thales, Anaximenes, and Anaxiamander. We left puzzling over how Thales thought that the world was made of water when there didn’t seem to be a drop in the place.

Our road trip ended with one of two blatant travel planning errors of our trip (stay tuned). Based on some misguided pages from the Lonely Planet, we had planned to spend our 2-year wedding anniversary night in the beach town of Oren. We arrived to find that the only hotel in town was painted a 1980s-style piercing shade of lime, the “beach” was strewn with litter, and that not a soul spoke English. We promptly exited Oren and identified a new destination - Yalikavak, a small town on the Bodrum Peninsula. Yalikavak turned out to be a much more desirable choice, and we celebrated our anniversary with a romantic seaside dinner.

For more photos, please click here.