The ancient Greek city in Turkey

We arrived in Kusadasi in the afternoon on day 9 of the programme, Tuesday 20th. That's today as I'm writing this post, but who knows when I'll get to publish this. I've got 2 other posts ready to go up as well as 2 of Kien's tales. I figure that if I write everything up and sort through all the photos then as soon as I find wifi I'll be able to publish the posts.

(Edit: it was seven days ago when this was written. Wow, I read back now and it feels like a gazillion years ago!)

We decided to take a local bus from Kusadasi to Ephesus, which was a bargain at 6TL each adult - Kien's ride was free. It was an interesting ride, and we were dropped off on the main highway, 1km away from the gate. We walked along the quiet street and came across an orchard full of trees baring fruit that I did not recognise. They kind of look like apples.



Ephesus is an amazing place. It would seem I have no decent vocabulary to describe all these ancient sites that we've visited. I'm astounded by the history and fascinated by how these archaeological sites have been found and restored.











Ephesus, an Ancient Greek city in Turkey, has been a place that has been built upon by Attic and Ionic colonists, the Roman Republic and various emperors in the times BC and AD. Supposedly Marc Antony and Cleopatra honeymooned here, and St. John and Mary, the mother of Jesus, lived nearby.















The temple of Hadrian.



The open air amphitheater was capable of holding 25,000 spectators and still remains in such good condition.



The library of Celsus was built in honour of the Roman Senator Tiberius Julius Celsus Polemaeanus. The library was built to store 12,000 scrolls and to serve as a mausoleum for Celsus, who is buried in a crypt beneath the library.





The terraced houses had these beautiful mosaic floors.



I really like the carving of the goddess Nike. You can totally see what inspired the swish.



I had left the boys halfway through since Kien wanted to play around the entrance where the trees were and Jef has already been here before. I loved wandering around to the quieter parts where hardly anyone went, so I was able to stop and take in the scenery of this wonderful place.







We left Ephesus the way we came in - walked to the main road where a guy waves at us and tells the driver via walkie talkie that we needed a ride. We wanted at the bus stop until we were picked up.





Back in Kusadasi we decided to come back on the ship instead of trying to sit down and have a beer out there where every shopkeeper was screaming at us to come into their store. Besides, drinks are free for us on the ship!

Istanbul stop

On day 8 of our cruise we arrived in Istanbul.









Our first destination on our shore excursion was the Galata Tower. It is one of the oldest in Istanbul; built as a lighthouse in 528 out of wood, then rebuilt of stone masonry in 1348, and then captured by the Turks when Istanbul was conquered in 1453.





We enjoyed a marvellous view of the city from the tower.











We then walked over one of the many bridges where many fishermen were catching mullet and mackerel.









We then stopped briefly at the mosque on the other side to have a quick look inside. It's not really my thing so we didn't stay for too long here.





We went to the spice market, and even though I find this particularly interesting I think the bazaar we were at was catering for tourists rather than locals.





What was interesting however was an authentic Turkish coffee. Oh wow, I thought I liked strong coffee, but this was something else. I even put in a whole sugar lump to see if there was any difference. Um, not really. No wonder the guy (who spoke barely any English) gave us a glass of cold water to go with our coffee. We also ordered Kien an icecream - Jef said it was an interesting something. I didn't try it, but Kien did have a few licks and didn't say yuck.



We stopped for meat kebabs before heading back to the ship, where we stopped for some tea prior to boarding.




The sunset over Istanbul was amazing as we sailed away from port. We watched it first from our balcony in the room and then from the top deck. Jef did a great job capturing these images!