Izmir, Turkey, and the ancient city of Ehpesus

Friday December 17, 2010 Day 170

We docked at Izmir, Turkey, this morning. Looking across the pier, we saw sections of large electricity-generation windmills. We were not sure whether these were for import or export. I think I forgot to mention that our cruise ship is the Norwegian Jade, a part of the Norwegian Cruise Lines (NCL) fleet.

Our home away from home for 12 days

We boarded a bus for our excursion to the ruins at Ephesus, an ancient Greek city, and later a major Roman city, on the west coast of Turkey and of Asia Minor. It contains the largest collection of Roman ruins in the Eastern Mediterranean. The city has a long, history, having already been inhabited during the Neolithic age. The city was famed for the Temple of Artemis (completed around 550 BC), one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. The temple was destroyed in 401 CE by a mob - not sure what they were protesting but they must have been pretty mad! Our tour guide passed out radio headphones again, which I have come to appreciate greatly. Someone ought to tell those Cretans about these things!

The site was crowded - I think about 20 buses came from our ship alone, and then there were other non-NCL visitors as well. It was impossible to get pictures which were not populated with strangers! The site, which covers more than ten acres, was littered (pardon the pun) with cats, many of them very tame and quite willing to be petted or even picked up. I had the misfortune to be petting one when it suddenly turned on me with both claws and teeth. Ouch! I immediately rinsed the puncture holes with water and spread Neosporin on them (thanks, Neo-to-go!) and hoped they would not get infected.

One of the many cats that roamed the site



Roger and me at the top of the ruins
This one is for you, Alicia

The tour starts at the top of a long, wide street which slopes down past ruins and more ruins and still more ruins. This street alone is more than a mile long. At the bottom of the street is the Library of Celsus, the façade of which has been carefully reconstructed from all original pieces. It was build around 145 CE and once held 12,000 scrolls. From the library, we turned right and went into an amphitheatre, which has been updated and is still used today for concerts. It is believed to be the largest outdoor theater in the ancient world.

Looking down from near the top of the street

 

Our tour guide, standing beneath winged Nike

 

Carved ornamental stone littered the site

 

Beautiful mosaic tile work along former shop floors



The reconstructed facade of the library

The whole site is a mish-mash of different styles, sometimes one on top of another - apparently the Turks built on top of what the Byzantines had erected, who built atop what the Romans erected, who built atop the Greek installations. It is all there - just waiting for interpretation. Actually, it is estimated that only 15% of the site has been excavated, so the full excavation site will be vast. On the whole, it was a pretty amazing place, another huge stone graveyard just waiting to be unearthed and resurrected.

 

One style of column, built right on top of another



Amphitheatre, used for concerts today

Roger and me in front of the library

Stone graveyard with amphitheatre in the background

This sign sort of says it all!

 On the way back from Ephesus, our bus stopped at a rug-making school where young people are trained in the art of making rugs of silk, wool, cotton, or a combination of the three. We watched silk being unwound from cocoons, learned a bit about the dying process, then watched a woman demonstrating one of the weaving techniques. Because the process is hard on the eyes, the weavers can only work two hours a day. Then we were ushered into a showroom where several men laid out carpet after carpet after carpet, in splendid colors and patterns. The carpets were absolutely gorgeous, and often I saw one which I thought was my favorite, but it was soon surpassed by one that I liked even more! Supposedly they were authorized to make us a good price on the carpets, and I assume that some of the passengers did buy rugs, but we were not in the market. The visit did give me a new respect for those beautiful, intricately-woven rugs.

Silk cocoons with silk strands being unwound from them.

Roger remarked that he has now been on both sides of Asia, as he visited Shanghai, China several years ago on business.

As we left the harbor this morning, and again on our return, we saw some colored grain silos standing near the port. We were unable to determine what they held, but they were quite lovely - very different from the huge cream-colored sentinels of my experience.

Grain silos near the harbor

The evening’s entertainment was sort of the Jade’s version of American Idol, really designed to showcase the talents of four of their professional staff performers, because the “contestants” were not amateurs nor were they passengers on the ship. They performed a couple of times each, and one by one they got “voted off” (but not off the ship!) by the audience. Cute, but I guess that is damning them with faint praise.