Tue, 04/02/25    Ephesus, Turkey

 Day 87 - Wednesday, April 2nd, 2025 – Kusadasi, Turkey

The first thing you may notice is that the entry, Kusadasi, is different than what the itinerary says. In fact, the ship docked at Kusadasi. The town we are going to visit is Ephesus, Turkey. This is the first and only time we will visit Asia on this trip. Until recently, we didn't think we would touch Asia at all. One morning we were watching the Wake Up show from the Princess TV and they mentioned that we do touch Asia by visiting Turkey. This was cool. Now we can say we have touched 5 continents on this trip. So far, in our travels, it is our only visit to Asia. We still desperately want to do Japan, China and the Middle East, but technically we are now able to check off Asia as being visited. I am saying technically because the six hours we spend in Turkey does not really qualify as being in Asia if you want to be picky about it. That is similar to what has happened with us and Africa until this trip. Two or three years ago we spent three hours in a town on the African coast. On this trip, we spent several hours and visited multiple places in Africa, now we can clearly say we've visited Africa.

The tour we were going on was to start at 10:00. This means we did not have to be up and out that early so we did breakfast on 7. Again, the restaurant was like a meat locker, so cold. We rushed through breakfast before I froze solid. We got off the ship and made our way into the marketplace. Immediately off the ship there was a huge marketplace. We were to meet our tour guide at Starbucks. Yes, Starbucks. As it turns out there are several in this town. It took us a while to find the Starbucks in this huge marketplace but as we were approaching it, our tour guide, Tugrel, approached us. Because we find it difficult to turn down Starbucks, Mary got a Turkish tea and I got a medium coffee. It's the best cup of coffee I've had in three months. Mary even liked the Turkish tea. We took our drinks to the van. There, we met the driver, Sebo. I was loaded into the van. My chair was locked down securely. We took off.

We quickly realized that Tugrel should have been a college history professor at a Turkish university. For the entire six or so hours we spent with him we felt like we were with a impassioned history professor. Not only did he know the history but he talked about it from different perspectives like Christianity versus Muslim versus Judaism. He was able to talk about events from both sides. The other thing that became apparent as we listened to him for a while, he spoke better English than I do. We should have asked where he learned English. You could have dropped him in the middle of Wisconsin and no one would have looked at him differently. I heard him say he was a tour guide for 20 years. That would explain a lot of why he knows the history. His knowledge goes beyond that though. I was truly impressed.

We drove for quite a while listening to Tugrel tell us a somewhat abbreviated version of the history of Turkey. We pulled into a parking lot at the gates of the Ruins of Ephesus Archaeological Site.  For about two hours we wandered around the ruins of a 1000 BCE community. It was huge. For the most part I will let the pictures do the talking, but we saw things like The Temple of Artemis, Library of Celsus and the agora or marketplace. The place was about a mile long, but I can only go about 1/4 of a mile before there were a series of steps down to the lower areas. From where we were standing though we could see all the way down. The people that were going all the way down could have been there for six or eight hours. That's how long this place was. Of course, at every stop, Turgel gives us a detailed lecture on what we were looking at. In hindsight, I should have recorded some of these lectures to give you an idea of the details he provided. Hindsight is 20-20.  I don't want to say it was a bad thing, I just wish I would remember 10% of what he said. On the way back up the hill he found things that he didn't mention on the way down the hill, so we got double the lectures. The part that I thought was cool is obviously the place was not all built at once. He was able to explain how this place was built when the Turks moved in. He was able to show that this place was changed because they added crosses to the doorways when the Christians came in. I was able to get a good picture of how the place changed as the time moved on.  

Eventually, we made it back to the car. We loaded up and drove up the road another 5 or 10 miles to the Church of St Mary. Apparently, Catholics believe that Mary is buried here. People come from all over to worship here. This includes 3 popes. I asked my Mary about her visit here, because I stayed in the van, and she told me all that and more. The place was interesting to her because of the name Mary. I believe she said there are 7 in her family alone. Mary took pictures and she was in there for about 30 minutes before she came out. It was a good visit for her. I think it was a good visit for me too because I got a nap.

Earlier in the trip, Mary mentioned all the leather she saw in the market as we went to the van. She mentioned that she would like to make some pieces from leather but she didn't have any unfinished, for lack of a better word, leather. Turgel makes a few phone calls. We can't tell what he's talking about because he's talking in Turkish, we guess. And it's not long before we pull up in front of a leather emporium for lack of a better term. It is a huge building with several leather goods dealers. He tells Mary to come out with him and they go into the building for about 30 minutes. Mary comes out with a bag and a big smile. She was able to buy some number of leather pieces that she can then use in her sewing to create whatever she has in mind. I never saw the actual leather, but she did spend $250. I'm not worried about the money because I saw the smile and that's all that matters.

From there we drove down back into town. Specifically, we ended up at the Ge Lokum Tasty Market. I did a Google Translate and it says “get delight tasty”. There is a Turkish candy I guess you would call it that is called the Turkish delight. Mary bought a box and we tried it. She liked it. I didn't particularly care for it. It is like a gummy with a very mild flavor. The one I happen to have was lemon. I guess what made it weird as it was covered in a white dust that had a weird taste. So you had to get past the weird taste of the dust coating to get to the mild gummy. It just didn't work for me. I can check that off my bucket list, I guess. So we wander through this market for maybe an hour. We did not find any adequate T-shirts, but we did get the Turkish delights, refrigerator magnet and postcards. It was more about experiencing the marketplace. It seems every stop has a marketplace like this and they're all kind of the same but at the same time a little different. They all have countless stalls. They all have similar products. I noticed is that in Turkey, the salespeople almost chased us down the aisle hawking their goods. They were nice, but very persistent.

From there, we got back in the van and we wandered around the little towns that led into the city. This was to give us an idea of town life. In all the stops we have stopped, I've been somewhat amazed at the size of the homes. Without much exaggeration, I would say the average house was maybe 1000 square feet. Many of them were smaller. I did not ask Turgel, but maybe I should have. I would guess that they just live simpler lives.

We ended up back at the cruise terminal. We said our goodbyes and took pictures. I won't mention it again here, but we had an amazing tour guide. Even the driver was pretty good. Another successful tour. It was one of the better excursions that we've gone on so far. From a purely tour guide perspective, Turgel wins the best tour guide of the trip award by far. He made the ancient city come alive.

Mary and I had to make our way back through the large market outside the cruise terminal. We still did not find T-shirts so we were on the hunt for them. Somewhere in the middle we found a T-shirt shop and we bought T-shirts. I was low on Monster Energy so Mary got me to the Starbucks to sit for a few minutes while she went back towards the front of the market to see if she could find Monster. As it turns out, she found monster and she found what she is now addicted to – Coke Zero Lemon. She has been drinking this for the last three or four ports. She is not as bad as I am with my Monster Energy, but she's close. So she came back with her addiction and mine in the bag and we made our way back to the ship. You would think we were done, right? No. In the duty free shop right outside the ship we bought a bottle of Turkish wine and two Turkish beers. Now, we were on our way to the ship. We made it to the cabin without spending any more money, simply because there was no more places to spend it.

We stayed in for a couple of hours before getting cleaned up for dinner. I had one of the Turkish beers. Nothing to write home about.

At dinner, I had a liver pate appetizer. I had salad. For my entree I had fish of some sort. It can't remember the exact fish as I write this. It was good, that counts. On the menu was North Carolina pulled pork. I told the waiter that Mary and I would share that just to try it. I didn't know what North Carolina pulled pork was. It seems to be more of a vinegar based pulled pork than anything. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't my idea of pulled pork.

Mary had chicken soup, with salad, and red sauce pasta dish. There was no meat in there, but the sauce was really good she said. For dessert we both had champagne sorbet. It was a nice dinner after a long day.

We made our way back to the cabin and made our way to our pillows shortly thereafter.