luxemblog: Turkey Part II: Sirince & Ephesus (Aegean Coast)

So our next segment of our trip was taking a quick, very comfortable and easy-peasy flight from Istanbul to Izmir. It was less than an hour flight, and super cheap. Air Pegasus does a nice flight, and the price is right! After landing, we had arranged for a shuttle to take us to our hotel, in a teeny tiny town called Sirince (Shir-in-jeh). Oprah called it her "favorite town in Turkey". It was easy to see why. Sirince was one of the areas that was a part of the "population exchange" in Turkey. This area of Turkey was populated with Greeks and the islands off the coast had Turks living there. The govt decided that to "simplify" things the Greeks had to go to the islands to be close to mainland Greece and the Turks needed to come back to the mainland. Because Greeks had lived in this area there were lots and lots of wine vineyards left behind. Old vineyards like these were quite unusual for a Muslim country like Turkey. This area was one of the few in turkey that produced wine.

Our "taxi" ride from Izmir airport to Sirince.

The little Pension where we stayed. A great place. The couple who ran it were incredibly nice, thoughtful, and the place itself was super charming, comfortable and relaxing.

The view from our window. All we could hear were goats, chickens, birds and the regular calls to prayer from the local mosque.

A clementine tree just outside our window.

A ranunculus - my favorite flower, in my favorite color - a good omen.

Some young olive trees ready for planting.

The kitchen where our hosts prepared their family meals

and our breakfasts.

The hillside homes of Sirince.

A sign for one of the many little pensions.

Our room.

Breakfast in the garden terrace, just outside our room.

A rooster.

More of the outdoor living spaces - I LOVED it all.

And the legendary Turkish breakfast: cheese, bread, olives, cucumbers, tomatoes, honey (the best I have ever had!!!), and of course endless cups of Chai (tea).

Re-purposed olive oil cans.

More of that glorious terrace. Wisteria was just starting to bloom and the
bees were buzzing happily.

Chai!

Dave enjoying a good read under the emerging wisteria

blossoms and happy bees.

A swallow or martin making a nest.

Happy cat, the predator...

... and her prey.

An abandoned Greek church on the hillside behind our pension.

Cats everywhere, even in the shops.

One afternoon we took a spectacular hike - both Dave and I thought it was possibly our favorite hike of all time. We walked past verdant hills full of olive trees, grape vines, cypress trees, grazing sheep and goats, citrus trees and orchards in bloom. Birds were singing like crazy and it was sunny and the perfect temperature.

And there were fig trees -everywhere.

Grape vines.

A young orchard in bloom - cherries?

The olive trees were HUMONGOUS. Bigger than any we had ever seen.

See Dave sitting in this one?

Turkey has lots of tortoises scruffing about, which was really fun to see. Here we happened upon a couple "gettin' it on". The routine was the male banging his shell into the back of the female's shell, and then mounting her and hissing. Kinda funny.

This was just outside what looked like a new Lycian tomb (more on Lycian Tombs in the next installment of "Luxemblog:Turkey!") being cut into the side of a stone cliff. I loved how this little outdoor "breakroom" was so well-equipped, with a fridge (with pad lock), two chairs and quite a view.

Speaking of views, the Aegean sea is the background here.

Dave first ventured to the top of this cliff area (below is where they were carving

what looked like a Lycian tomb).

I followed Dave and also enjoyed the view, and the quiet...

Later that night we took a walk in the evening and took a couple photos from

the Greek Church behind our pension.

Some Roman-era aqueduct ruins and stork nests in the town center of Selcuk,
where we caught a Domus (mini-van taxi) to Ephesus.

Inside one of the many Dolmuses. This driver was a fan of one of the Istanbul soccer teams - Basiktas, or something like that. Dolmuses (Dolmi?) were GREAT modes of transporation. Super cheap, and they had regular stops, just like a bus. They went all over the place and were very comfortable and easy.

AND now, EPHESUS (thanks, Wikipedia!):

"Ephesus was an ancient Greek city ... near present-day Selçuk, Izmir Province, Turkey. It was one of the twelve cities of the Ionian League during the Classical Greek era. In the Roman period, it was for many years the second largest city of the Roman Empire; ranking behind Rome, the empire's capital. Ephesus had a population of more than 250,000 in the 1st century BC, which also made it the second largest city in the world.

The city was famed for the Temple of Artemis (completed around 550 BCE), one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. The temple was destroyed in 401 CE by a mob led by St. John Chrysostom. Emperor Constantine I rebuilt much of the city and erected new public baths. The town was again partially destroyed by an earthquake in 614. The city's importance as a commercial center declined as the harbor was slowly silted up by the Cayster River.

Ephesus was one of the seven churches of Asia that are cited in the Book of Revelation. The Gospel of John may have been written here. It is also the site of a large gladiators' graveyard."

And our bag of New Hope Mills Pancake Mix has a quote from "Ephesians" on it. Strange coincidences...

One of the larger view of Ephesus.

The library of Epheus, probably the more famous of the structures here.

The grand road, which ran through town and was lined with statues of gods or famous leaders, can't remember exactly... sigh...

Something that was super exciting about Ephesus was that you could see what INTERIOR spaces were like back then, thousands of years ago. Ususally you see the exterior remains of structures, or chunks of columns, etc. They discovered a little housing complex of the upper class and have been excavating it.This was so unique in that you could see the wall paintings, floor mosaics, interior pools and other decorative features of living spaces. I think because it was buried and undiscovered for so long it was all still pretty much in tact. You could get a sense of how people really lived.

This guy is organizing chunks of marble and mosaics that lined the walls of a grand dining room.

There were walkways that took you all above the interior spaces. SO interesting.

Some floor mosaics and tile work.

Wall paintings in the background, decorative floor treatments in the foreground.

Outside, Dave was checking out the public toilet. Hard to imagine a big group of people using this at once. But maybe there were partitions in between each commode?

This sculpture marked an entrance to a bordello or something like that. I could never get that close to it because tour groups were always very interested in it.