Selçuk Part Deux

20 May 2009
Because our bus left at 10.30pm, we had a second full day in Selcuk. We ate a late-ish breakfast (10.00) and then wandered around the city for a bit. We found remnant of city walls, a castle, an old mosque, and last, but not least, we found the Temple of Artemis, famous from the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World list.

Having read that the thing had been destroyed long ago, we had very low expectations, but it was actually quite cool. While Ephesus is expensive (20 Turkish Lira or 10 Euro), seeing the Temple of Artemis is free. While most of it is just a pile of rocks, one of the pillars has been re-erected. There is a gaggle of geese wandering around the grounds, people right outside selling obscene and senseless “souvenirs” (if you can even call them that) and buses of tour groups standing at the entrance (fortunately, the tour groups only stop for a photo opportunity and move on quickly to their next photo opportunity.

After a stop at the temple, we took a bus to the beach where we saw and experienced many interesting sites.

Our evening was spent finding food, lodging for the next night, and checking email and facebook and other such vices.

Selçuk and Efes

19 May 2009

Famous for it’s camel wrestling (yes, you heard me right, camel wrestling) event every January, Selçuk is the obvious place to stay when visiting Efes (Ephesus).

Efes was an ancient Greek city on the coast of what is now Turkey.

We had reached the top gate when the clouds turned gray and we started hearing thunder. I fully anticipated rain. We were partway through the site when fat, cold drops started to fall. We started walking more quickly. We were on our way to see one last thing we had missed the first time when marble-sized hail started falling. I couldn’t believe it. Hail. In Turkey. On the day we were visiting an ancient ruins site. The morning was exceptionally hot and sunny, and the afternoon was chilly, rainy, and it hailed!

We left with a lot of other tourists, but didn’t have transportation. We had taken a minibus part of the way, but had been dropped off at the highway entrance. There was still a kilometer or so left to walk from there.

While trying to decide if we should brave the hail or not, a couple in a car stopped and offered to take us into Selçuk (about 3 kilometers away). We happily accepted. By the time we got out of the car at the bus station (we were staying only a couple of blocks away), it had stopped hailing and raining, but we were still soaked. We walked back to the hotel and dried off a bit. The rest of the day was spent more or less lounging about. We went out once for food, but ended up caught in hail again, so we took that as a sign and stayed at the hotel the rest of the evening.