Ephesus

Ephesus is an amazing place. According to my trip notes, it is the most preserved and intact ancient Roman city of the Eastern Mediterranean. The library is of significant importance because it was built for Alexandria. I'm not 100% about the details, all I know is it was beautiful.

(The gnome away from home makes his first appearance!)

(Can't take me anywhere without doing a jumping photo)

A group of us decided to do our own tour instead of paying a lot of money for a guide. We got up early (before it got really hot), hired two taxis and headed to the top gate of the ruins. Shane and Kathy had bought a guidebook the day before so Shane could tell us a bit about what we were looking at. I had fun just wandering around, taking photos and people watching (there was one tour group dressed entirely in white polos and beige pants!).

(Squint and you can see the Gnome!)

(The library was very impressive. Of course we had to take silly pictures.)

After the main ruins, we started to walk back to town. Our tour leader, Kara had told us that we would find a laneway near the Cave of the Seven Sleepers. We stopped by there first because the story sounded interesting. Apparently (and don't quote me), they were forced into these caves to avoid being killed due to being Christians. They ended up sleeping for approximately 200 years. When they woke up and found that being Christian was accepted, they promptly died praising God. A little bit depressing, huh? You can't go into the caves anymore because they are falling apart so we just peaked in passed the fence (I couldn't get a good photo)

(Local woman making gozleme, a thin pancake filled with cheese and spinach)

We found a laneway (I'm still not sure if it was the right one) and started walking through the farm fields as per Kara's instructions. We couldn't help ourselves when we noticed the trees were filled with ripe peaches, plums and figs. We got our serving of fruit! Shhhhh....

(I've never seen a pomegranate growing on a tree before!)

We got a bit lost and wandered through the fields for a good hour but finally popped out onto the main street. After grabbing a doner for lunch, we headed back to the hotel to clean up. Some people went to a local beach but I decided to take a nap, cool down and email. For dinner, the group rented a van and we headed into the hill to Sirince. Sirince is a little town perched in the hills of a valley and famous for fruit wine. We started tasting....and then couldn't remember which flavour we liked the best so had to taste them again...and then couldn't decide which flavour to buy so we had to taste them again....

We ate at a little restaurant that had nice views of the sun setting on the village. The food was great and cheap. I had a nice conversation with Shane about books/documentaries about mountain climbing (He was reading Into Thin Air) and Linnea and Kenzie and I shared tastes of our food. Afterwards, we hopped back into the van and headed back to Selcuk and our hotel. Next we were off to Pammukkale!

(Yummy riced stuffed grape leaves)

(Gozleme (Turkish pancake) filled with eggplant = very nice)