YOU CAN’T BE SIRIUS !
In our travels we see amazing boats of every size, shape,
and design. This one called “Sirius” looked a bit like the Beatles "Yellow
Submarine"! Believe it or not, people go around the world in things like
this!
THE UNITED STATES OR LIBERIA?
In a previous blog Cathy mentioned about the number of
Turkish, Greek, and Russian boats that some how are "registered" in
the United States, and fly American flags. This is obviously some kind of
tax dodge? Most of the boats seem to be registered in "Delaware".
This Turkish boat “Saban”, caught our eye, not only is
he registered in "Daleware", but his American flag is on upside down!
EPHESUS AT LAST!
One of our objectives of heading north up the west coast of Turkey was to
visit the ancient site of Ephesus.
After a couple of hundred miles from Finike we reached Kusadasi, the closest
town to safely leave the boat. We decided to check into the Kusadasi Marina for
the night and visit Ephesus the following morning.
It cost something like 70 euros to take a taxi from Kusadasi up to the
site. We caught the local dolmus for 10 TL and got off on the main road
and walked the last two kilometers to the site.
THE EPHESUS SITE
Ephesus was the Roman capital of Asia Minor and is steeped in history. St.
Paul, St. John, The Virgin Mary, and Alexander The Great have all been here at
one time or another!
The city used to be served by a harbour at the end of the main street
leading up to the theatre. Over time the harbour silted up and left Ephesus
about 8 Km (5 Miles) inland from the sea.
[Cathy looking at an areial view of the site showing the old harbour]
Ephesus must have been an awesome sight to
sailors and visitors. When they arrived they would dock their ship in the
protected harbour to unload their goods. They would then pass through the
massive gate opening on to one of Ephesus' wide white marble streets lined
with torches for more than a quarter of a mile to the huge theatre at its end.
We could not walk down to the ancient harbour as
the street was roped off to protect two nesting storks nesting on top of one of
the columns at the harbour end of the street.
There was a brief rainstorm while we were there
which made the white marble streets glisten, as they must have once shined in
the 7th century when they were first laid.
The Ephesus site in huge and still largely unexcavated. We
did a complete circuit around the site following its marble streets out to the
edges of the city. Historians have calculated at its height the population of
Ephesus was around 250,000 making it one of the largest cities at its time in
the Mediterranean.
Ephesus is usually swamped with visitors, as it is one
of the most popular sites in Turkey. The rain seemed to keep them in check so
for the most part we were able to explore in peace.
The site is littered with massive columns and
fragments of the ruins. As there never seem to be any stone masons tools in the
museums it is quite awesome that there was so much stone carving. For example,
how on earth did they start out with a quarried lump of marble, shape it, and
then turn the spiral grooves on the column in the picture above with such
precision? This column is some 500 CM in diameter and this piece alone probably
weighs more than a ton!
Sometimes if you look carefully, you can discover a gem in the ruins
off the beaten track. Above is a game board carved into a large stone. It is
easy to imagine youngsters gathered around it throwing a bone die and moving
their markers around the board.
The sun did come out eventually!
THE EPHESUS THEATRE
The Roman theatre is the largest in the Mediterranean. It
seated more than 24,000 people.
St. Paul (with St. John’s help) is supposed to have
stood at the highest point in the eastern corner and “mass baptised” 40,000
assemble Ephesians.
The theatre is still very much intact and is an
amazing feature of Ephesus.
Cathy, taking in the staggering size of the theatre. It is
hard to imagine what it was like when filled to capacity
THE CELSIUS LIBRARY
This was once the third largest library in the
world after Alexandria and Pergamon. It is said to have contained over 12,000
scrolls in its collection of writings.
The entrance to the library was carefully
reconstructed stone by stone in the 19th century by archaeologists.
Cathy is looking down on some of the ruins in front of the
famous library.
EPHESUS PLUMBING
Ephesus had a very sophisticated system of
drains, sewers, and fresh water delivery. Everywhere on the site there are
drains and partially exposed pipes of the ancient water works.
No ISO standard sizes here! Each pipe would have
been made from clay and joined with cement.
These pipes are carved from blocks of stone and
were used to carry fresh water via a siphon system from miles away from
Ephesus. We have seen this type of pipe before (but much larger) ‘in the wild’
as part of an aqueduct system between Kalkan and Patara.
These are the Ephesus public toilets! Just in front of the
town Brothel. The waste was carried away by a constant flowing sewer system
about six feet below the toilet seats. A great place to sit and chat with your
neighbour!
THE TERRACED HOUSES
Strangely the highlight of Ephesus is not over-run by
tourists. Perhaps it was because of the 15 TL entrance fee? I think we would
have gladly paid more.
Called the “Terraced Houses” this is an ‘Eden Project’
style building that covers the hillside excavation of seven Roman houses and an early Christian Basilica. The
excavation and renovations are continuing and archaeologists are permanently
working inside.
This is a photo above is of the site BEFORE the
building was constructed. Note there is an excavated area on the left of the
photo. To the right is the unexcavated area that will be covered by the new
building. Earthquakes caused the hillside to cover and preserve the houses in the
unexcavated area.
This is an AFTER photo of the building that now
covers the previously unexcavated hillside houses.
This is a photo of inside the new building.
There are extensive glass catwalks that overlook the excavations below.
If you look closely you can see there are
archaeologists working in the top left corner of the photo restoring a wall
painting like those uncovered in the foreground.
The glass walkways let you look down at the site
below and what you see really brings to life what it must have been like in the
lives of the rich Romans that lived here. Simply amazing! This is a Turkish
Pompeii.
Looking down on to an internal courtyard. Note
the fine mosaics. Many of the rooms had under floor heating (Hypocausts) and
running hot and cold water.
Here archaeologists are piecing the fragments of the
plastered ceiling of the early Christian Basilica together to recover the
paintings that were on the ceiling brought down by past earthquakes.
The "Terraced Houses" were certainly the highlight of our visit to
Ephesus.
Look at that woman over there!
OMG, it's Cathy climbing on top of precious
ancient ruins to retrieve white mulberries from the tree! How embarrassing!
and FINALLY...
EPHESUS? WILD HORSES COULDN’T DRAG US AWAY…AND THEY ALMOST
DID!
A last bit of excitement! While waiting to catch the dolmus back
to Kusadasi, there was suddenly a thundering of hooves. From around the corner someone’s
horses had escaped and were on the run.
[Needless to say, Leighton grabbed the halter of the nearest horse, swung up and riding bareback, caught the other horses...] Yeah, right! Leighton doesn't DO runnaway hay-burners!
THE SAIL TO TEOS
The next morning we cast off from Kusadasi at 08:30 and arrived in Teos marina just
after 3 PM. A sea journey of about thirty five nautical miles.
When we docked Makarma in the
assigned berth we met a delightful Turkish resident of Teos on the boat next
door who was taking his family out for a sail. Once we got settled, he told us
that there was the weekly slow food fair in town where people bring and sell
homemade food. Off we went!
THE TEOS FOOD FAIR
A family affair. Mum, daughter and grandmother
making gozleme.
Here’s granny cooking out lunch!
We stocked up on various freshly made goodies
for the boat. This bottled fruit in syrup is a real treat.
THE TEOS LIGHTNING STORM
We’ve been playing cat and mouse with the weather, trying to get as far
north as possible before the "Meltemi" - a strong summer wind that
blows relentlessly from the north. The Meltami can make a northward passage
almost impossible.
We were pleased to find a local weather station at Kusadasi to give us a
more up to date and accurate forecast for the next stage of our journey.
We were both pretty tired from the sail up to Teos and after the food fair
and a brief tour around the town we turned in about 9:30 PM. We both fell
sound asleep in no time.
At 3:30 AM, there was a flash and a very loud explosion just outside the
boat. We thought a bomb had gone off in the marina.
We looked outside and there
was nothing. No wind. No rain. Just dead still. Then there was another flash
and this time it was obvious. A blinding bolt of lightning struck the higher
ground just outside the Marina. Then another. Each one was followed by a
deafening boom!
We have never experienced an electrical storm quite
like it. It just came out of nowhere. Lightning physically hitting objects and
the ground all around the marina. Sparks flying in the air. Then came the hail.
It was so violent we thought it was going to shatter the hatches. There was
such a roar inside the boat we could hardly hear each other speak.
All the time
more and more lightning with violent crashes of thunder. For a while the
flashes were so close and bright that Leighton had to put on sunglasses to be
able to keep a lookout outside.
The following morning the repair crews were out replacing
wires that had been vaporized in the early morning blitz. It was certainly an
uncomfortable feeling to be sitting under a forty-foot high metal mast, but
other masts were higher and it looked like a boat further down in the marina
may have been struck. We were safe and lucky to be OK.
It is a good thing that sailors have short memories.
THE EXPEDITION TO FIND ANCIENT TEOS
Despite having had very little sleep during the lightning storm,
the next morning after breakfast we set off on a hike to try and locate the
ancient town of Teos.
On the paved road out of town Cathy noticed lots of
little hopping things and soon we could see hundreds of little frogs that must
have hatched out in the night. We managed to not step on any of them and soon
found we were on a gravel track that led us further out of town.
We managed to get past a large unchained dog that occupied
the middle of the road and after about 2 KM we saw some signs that directed us
to various parts of the site.
There was a line of ancient olive trees that judging from
the size of their trunks were clearly planted here several hundred, perhaps
even a thousand years ago. This tree has seen a lot of history and is still
going strong.
Unlike Ephesus, there was physically very little to see of
the site in the way of ruins as they were still buried waiting to be excavated.
However, Cathy spotted an unusual stone that we thought might have been an
early “Spec-Savers” store, but more likely an altar stone where animals were
sacrificed and the channels around the circles were to drain away the
blood. As it was once in the temple of
Dionysus here it could also have been used for pouring libations of wine.
We are expecting more southerly winds so
tomorrow we will be sailing further north.
Next stop…?
