Exploring Ruins and Enjoying Turkish Hospitality - Selcuk to Marmaris

Selcuk

After 4 days in Istanbul it was off south to the smaller city of Selcuk. This would be our base for a few days as we visited the Greek and Roman ruins at Ephesus and Pamukkale. Again we opted for a convenient location close to the centre of town, a hotel called Jimmy's Place. Shortly after arriving we acquainted ourselves with our new surroundings or in other words we were hungry and began looking for a restaurant.

The low down on Turkish Carpets

As in Istanbul the restaurant owners of Selcuk were there to greet you and try and get you into there establishments but to our relief they were not as pushy as in Istanbul. With so few tourists at this time of the year it didn't seem long for the businesses to acquaint themselves with the Canadian family wandering their streets. Over the next few days we took some time to visit a few shops and restaurants where we were warmly welcomed with tea, enthusiasm to show and educate us about Turkish textiles and carpets, and discover how they made made Turkish pizza called pide. It became apparent, even in Turkey, people in smaller cities are more laid back and were glad to spend some time getting to know their visitors. It was here in Selcuk that we really began to appreciate and enjoy the Turkish hospitality.

Making pide

After our lunch, we wandered around and visited our first of several ruins. In this case it was the St. John's Basilica, as in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John the Gospel writers. It was here on top of a hill overlooking the present day city of Selcuk that John is believed to have written his gospel. Today, from this hill you can see evidence of several of the worlds major civilizations. Apart from the Basilica from the early Christian era, there were the remains of the Greek Temple of Artemis, an early Muslim mosque, an Ottoman castle, and the present day Turkish town of Selcuk. It is a real crossroads of history.

Theatre at Ephesus

For the next day we had arranged a tour of the ruins of Ephesus a former Greek and later Roman city and also made famous by St. Paul with his letters to the Ephesians.  Ephesus is one of the best preserved Roman cities complete with examples of an agora (marketplace), bathing and toilets facilities, paved streets, temples, a 25,000 seat theatre, and a library complete with a secret passage to the brothel. (These Romans thought of everything.) The city was destroyed by an earthquake and abandoned. Due to other geological factors the site of the city was no longer near the sea and so it was never built over and thus the ruins were preserved.

Warming the seat!!

Unfortunately for our visit the weather did not cooperate and it poured rain for most day but it was still an amazing visit. For the most part, the site is open and you are free to explore the ruins and not just view from behind fences. This made it a rare opportunity to get a sense of what a Roman city was like and of course Aaron and Niall took full advantage to climb and wander through as much of the site as possible. For the boys, the highlights were the theatre which they enjoyed climbing to the top and the marble toilets where they learned in winter time slaves were brought along to sit on the seat first to warm them up for their masters. (Again these Romans think of everything.) Later we visited the archaeology museum in Selcuk which had some great examples of Roman sculptures, even better than we saw in the British Museum. It was a great day for us and we met a mix of fellow travelers, Australians, Malaysians, Pakistani, and Japanese.

Ephesus

After our wet day in Ephesus, we returned to our hotel and the warmth of the fireplace in the lobby. Here the boys dug into some extensive reference binders of Roman and Greek history put together by hotel staff. Later we enjoyed a few games of backgammon and met some more Australian travelers. The warmth of the fire and hotel staff turned the lobby into a great gathering place where travelers and staff mingled and exchanged traveling advice and stories of home.

In Cleopatra's Pool

The next ruins on our list was that of a Greek city near present day Pamukkale but perhaps more famous for its hot springs and travertine deposits. This site was a 3 hour bus ride inland from Selcuk and for us would be the next leg of our Turkish explorations. Again this was another ancient city destroyed by an earthquake and as in Ephesus there was a well preserved 25,000 seat theatre with some amazing acoustics. With Aaron exploring on the far side of the theatre, Niall discovered he could call to him just by using his normal voice! This time the highlight for the boys was their swim in Cleopatra's Pools, fed by natural hotsprings. With an air temperature of about 9 degrees, they enjoyed swimming in the 37 degree water. Later we all enjoyed the warm waters on our toes as we descended bare foot over the travertine deposits to the our hotel for the night. As a geologist, this was a highlight for me. The hot spring water is rich in dissolved calcium and as the water seeps over the ground the calcium is deposited as a type of limestone. Back home in Newfoundland we have some very small (a few square metres) examples of this phenomenon, here at Pamukkale it stretches for many 100's of metres and is spectacular.

Travertine Deposits

From Pamukkale, we headed further south to the port city of Marmaris where we would catch a ferry to the Greek Island of Rhodes and hopefully some warmer weather. We were all tiring of the cold wet weather we had been experiencing for most of the last 2 months as we traveled  through Europe and parts of Turkey. So first thing the next morning it was off on a 5 hour bus ride along twisty narrow roads through some pretty mountainous country. At one point we were over a 1000m high and there were snow capped mountains not far off. By the time we arrived in Marmaris we were hungry and thirsty but rewarded with T-shirt weather and dropped off conveniently near a McDonalds. Familiar food is important at times when you are traveling with children.

Enjoying Turkey

With a few hours left of our Turkish explorations and with a little extra Turkish lira in our pockets Susan bought herself another scarf and I indulged myself with a Turkish hair removal process also known as a shave and a haircut. This as I would discover involves more than just scissors, clippers, and a razor but some ingenious use of dental floss and flaming Q-tips to remove hair from ears and cheeks normally ignored by barbers back home. Like my hair cut, we found Turkey to be a mix of the familiar and not so familiar but combined together made for a great experience. We all really enjoyed our visit to Turkey but realize there is a lot more we would have liked to have seen.




For more pictures of Selcuk check out our web album.


For more pictures of Pamakkule check out our web album.