Sunday 17 May 2009

Selcuk, Ephesus and Izmir

We had originally booked Thursday through Saturday nights in Izmir, the town from which we were flying home on Sunday. Alex, the guy who helped us reunite with our tour group in Eceabat, had recommended that instead of staying in Izmir and doing day trips from there, we instead stay at a place called Atilla's Getaway that was about 60k further south in Selcuk. After looking up the place online, we decided to change our reservations to spend Thursday and Friday nights there, then just Saturday night in Izmir.

On Friday, we walked up the mountains behind his place to the Virgin Mary House, where she spent her last days. From there, we walked down to Ephesus. The ruins of a 250,000 person city, millennia later, can be phenomenal to walk through! We spent some time on the common walkways and around the major reconstructed sites, but then walked off on some trails into less-crowded areas where it was much less well-trodden. Somehow, over the course of that afternoon, I took more than 200 photos. A selection of them are available at http://picasaweb.google.com/trenshaw/turkey.

In all, this was a phenomenal trip! I was able to disconnect from work and mostly from technology overall. Meandering for hours on end through ruins, losing myself in my thoughts while on a long bus trip, seeing ridiculously grandiose mosques next to abject poverty... no regrets whatsoever about taking the trip!

No comments: