Early disembark this morning for Ephasus - 7:15 ugh. The ship had sailed all night and now we found ourselves in the port City of Kusadasi, Turkey. There were some serious thunderstorms with wild lightning all during the night, but it had stopped raining by the time we went out. We went out find that two other cruise ships had also arrived.....everyone is headed for the ancient city of Ephasus - that's what one does here.
Do the math. Our ship has about 1500 passengers, the other two ships were a bit bigger. So lets say there were a total of 5000 passengers. each bus holds about 50 people - that's 100 buses, right? So, needless to say the visit to the ruins was a bit hectic. And this is the "slow" season!
Ephasus is the largest and best preserved ruins of the ancient world. It really is spectacular! One thing that made this particularly interesting to us was a section were the excavation had been completed just six months ago. You could clearly see how the ruin had been covered in the dirt of the ages. On our walk we had to endure some brief showers but we were treated to a rainbow!
At the exit of the park one is "forced" to walk through a Turkish bazaar where you can be accosted to buy unwanted souvenirs. But we did not succumb!
On the way back to our ship, and lunch, we stopped at a Turkish carpet co-op. We were treated to free refreshments of wine, apple tea, Turkish coffee and this horrible alcoholic drink called Raki ( it looks like milk). But we were shown lots of very beautiful rugs. We thought (briefly) about a runner for our front entry way. The owner showed us several that would have been perfect! The price? $3,400. Maybe some other time.
While were having our lunch, our ship left Kusadasi and headed south for about 2 hours to the small island of Patmos. We anchored in the harbor and took the tender boats to shore. This beautiful small town is famous for its history in the travels of St. John the Divine. It was here that St. John wrote the Book of Revelations, while holed up in a cave. The cave is now a very popular Christian holy site, although we were not familiar with it, called The Grotto of the Apocalypse. Unfortunately, no photos allowed because the interior was quite interesting. After our group, and LOTS of others, had visited the cave, we got back on the bus and drove up the hill to St. John's Monastary. We commented several times during our trip that the idea of Monastary seemed out of place, considering all these tourists!
The Monastary is a functioning home for about 34 monks and has been used for hundreds of years. Again, no photos allowed in the church, which was overly decorated with some amazing gold pieces. By the time we got down, our knees were screaming! Unfortunately, like yesterday, most of our tour took place after dark. It would have been better to see in the daylight. (That's a disadvantage of off-season tours - short days)
By the time we got back to the ship, it was after 9:00 (again). Time for a quick dinner and then crash!
Overnight we'll sail to Crete for tomorrow's adventure. (The ship is rolling a bit tonight!)
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| Friendly cats everywhere |
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| Patmos |
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