Posted: 25 June 2014.
Hi All,
We finally left Marmaris on 12th May and spent four days leisurely cruising up the Turkish coast to Kusadasi. Even had the spinnaker up one day as we rode the southerlies north and were joined by dolphins playing in the bow wake. We’d decided to splash out on a marina in Kusadasi so that we could safely leave Scally for a day, safety comes at a price, 104 Euros/night, even more expensive than Aussie.
As it turned out it was worth it as we got to visit Ephesus. Now I’m not the biggest fan of spending ½ day looking at old rocks but this was something special. Given the good experience we’d had in Istanbul when we hired, or more accurately got conned into hiring, a guide we’re now committed guidees.
And once again, hiring a private guide proved well worth the cost. This guy spoke excellent English and was passionate and knowledgeable on Turkish and Roman history.
He transformed what was already a visual spectacle into a virtual walk with the Romans. It’s incredibly hard to comprehend that Ephesus started life sometime in the 7 th century BC positioned at the western end of the overland trade road into Asia and since then has been occupied by many different civilisations. Remnants of the different occupiers still remain but the Roman influence is the most prominent. They had libraries, schools, hospitals public baths and legalised bothels. The guide reckoned the city supported a million people at it’s prime.
To have arrived for the first time by ship and walked up the long marble Harbour Street under amazing statutes with shops selling all kinds of goods lining the road and arriving at the Grand Threatre that seated 25,000 must have been mind blowing. Then to visit the library and later bath in the public baths that had hot water piped miles from the hot springs in the hills and sewers piping away the dirty water, cumulating with a night out in the brothel. They are still excavating Ephesus and say there is much more to find and reconstruct, so impressive.
Back in marina rip off the next day we take advantage of being alongside to stock up at the local Migros supermarket. Walking down the biscuit isle items start flying off the shelves. Stupidly, my initial thought is that some idiot in the next isle is shaking the shelving until eventually my normally sharp as a tack brain realises we’re in the middle of an earthquake. Luckily we weren’t down baked bean isle as the 6.7 magnitude quake could have done some damage with a tin of Watties. Confusion reigns as we head out of the store and the staff all take to their cell phones. After about 5 minutes of inactivity we all head back in and we rescue our trolley, hopefully the beers hasn’t been shaken up too much.