Day 85: Ephesus

Two major stops again this day, as well as a lot of smaller ones. The smaller ones consisted of visiting craftspeople in the area, listening to them talk about their work and products and then trying to get us to buy stuff. I'm sure our driver gets a payoff for bringing tourists to these places, but some of them are still neat to see the people at work and often very informative.

The first shop was one specializing in leather products, especially jackets. It began with us getting a private fashion runway fashion show of the jackets. It felt a bit awkward as there were only the 6 of us watching, and probably more models than us. It lasted about 15 minutes and then we got the educational bit about different types of leather. Even though the jackets were a lot cheaper than you might find them elsewhere, they were still very expensive by my standards ($700-$1000 range). I made the mistake of considering one, which meant they tried every trick they could think of to get me to buy it. Once they went from being helpful to pushy I turned off very quickly.

The other shop made Turkish Delight sweets (plus some nut ones), which are just about everywhere in Turkey, and olive oil products for skin/hair care. The had free samples, which was a plus, but the prices seemed a bit high and I didn't want to carry candy around everywhere so I again bought nothing.

Now the big stuff. Ephesus is probably the most comlete and famous archaeological site in Turkey. The library is the most famous part (3rd largest of the ancient world, after the two I mentioned last post), but it has lots of other neat stuff, including a stadium, houses, the market square full of columns, and even public toilets.






We even got to watch a little Roman ceremony thing acted out with some dancers and gladiators and such. The acting wasn't very convincing, but it was hot, so I take a bit of pity on them.


The other spot we visited was the house of the Virgin Mary (apparently until her death/Assumption). As one would expect many of the visitors to the shrine are catholics, and walking through the two rooms of the house is a slow process with everybody stopping to pray and kiss everything in sight. Outside the house there is a spring of "holy" water, which supposedly grants a wish to those that drink it! I may not be Catholic, but I've got a running tally going of all the legendary boons I've earned on my travels, and one more wish to add to the list never hurts. (I will publish that list at some point - it's getting rather extensive and fun to do).