Kusadasi, Ephesus and The Terrace Houses, Ali Baba, Turkish coffee and delight😋

Our tour started at 7:30 am and the temperature in the shade was already 31C! 😅

As our bus left the port at Kusadasi (pop. 50,000) we were greeted by multi-coloured terraced houses on the hillside. The city boasts that it gets sunshine 311 days/year. 🌞

Ephesus is a very impressive ancient city because of how well excavated and preserved the ruins are. At one time, it was estimated that 250,000 people lived in Ephesus. Cleopatra and Antonius honeymooned here in 188. The city was rebuilt 4 times but totally abandoned only once because of malaria.

We walked thru the ruins of the Great Theatre, Celsius Library (which had a secret tunnel to the brothels), Hadrian’s Temple, the Market, Gymnasium, the Baths, Public Toilets, and the Terraced Houses. The Romans decorated all their buildings in garish colours such as bright red, turquoise, yellow and orange. Stepping into the inner rooms, of these houses for the rich, you can see how exquisitely they were decorated with frescoes, mosaics, marble columns, dome shaped living rooms (Basilica), and sculptures. The tour through these houses was a fascinating unveiling of the lifestyle of the rich but not so famous.

The Main Street was covered in marble, had anti-slip markings (scoured lines or holes), and the sewage system from the houses and shops ran under the street. All the roads transected each other at right angles. They had torches that illuminated the streets at night.

Woman could not use the public toilets and men had to pay to use the latrina. In cold weather servants were sent to warm up their master’s toilet seat. The drainage system was under the toilet and above the toilets were the baths. Water from the bath house was used to flush out the toilets. The waste was then deposited in big pits outside the city, dried and reused as fertilizer! #ancientgogreen

Our tour ended with a trip to a carpet manufacturer where we watched skilled artisans weaving the silk carpets. Sadly, this hand woven art form is being replaced by factory produced replicas. It is a Turkish custom to be served traditional Turkish coffee or apple tea, a sweet roll and a liquor to soften the potential buyer.

Walking along the harbour we found the perfect restaurant called Ali Baba. While we sampled a few local appetizers we were being entertained by 20 seagulls dive bombing the jellyfish. Lastly, we went to a popular sweet and nut shop, at the far end of town, to purchase freshly made Turkish delight (Lokum)!!