Ephesus and other wonders

This area has a lot of historic sites...the most important being Ephesus, one of the biggest cities of the old world and a gateway to Asia from the Mediterranean.  There's not a lot left of it, as it got levelled a few times with earthquakes and one or two sackings by marauding armies through history.  I won't bore you with the details as this blog is supposed to be more of our experiences in these places.

We were driven out to the site by Marco, who took us on a short detour out to a site where Mother Mary, yup, that one, was supposed to have spent her last days.  She apparently was taken there by St. John, who was in charge of keeping here safe.  Two popes have verified the substance of this claim but for me, I just don believe it.  I am not a Catholic or Baptist or any kind of Christian type of person. All this palaver leaves me totally unmoved.   We paid about 10 Turkish Lire each to get in, and this is about all there is there...not that I'm looking for bells and whistles or miracles, or anything.....

Whilst inside, waiting for a message, it occurred to me that the floor seemed in good nick, so I whispered to the attendant a question as to..."was this the original floor in here?" to which he indicated we should go outside to talk, this being such a hallowed place.  On the outside wall, he showed me a reddish ochre line which ran roughly horizontally along the brick work, up about three feet or so.  This is the original house, he told me.  The rest was built much later.  Maybe Mary did finish up here. ...anything's possible.  I asked for nothing.

This is a ROMAN ROAD.  It's roamin' all over the hills as you drive out these parts. (sorry, getting carried away here).  We were dropped off at the gates to Ephesus, bought the tickets and were almost accosted by a guide who pushed his services very strongly at us, but we managed to dodge him and entered into the ancient world.  What follows is a series of pictures with no captions to indicate what they all are, but it was all wonderful.  It's devastated, hard to imagine the original place, but still haunted by humans.  En masse.
Happily, we got there late in the day to avoid the worst of the crowds and the heat.  Photos are better too.

So, in a nutshell, that's Ephesus.  There are more ruins around the place, but there is still a lot of ground to cover, because I'm writing this from the next place ... Pamukkale.  I must stay though, that we were sad to leave Selcuk, because it's a great town, so friendly, and we were really treated like family at the pensione.
We might revisit this page for more photos and additions if I have time on the bus today, as we may be able to get WIFI on it,...the buses here are the best I have ever been on.  TV, a full time waiter and constant goodies being dolled out to us.

We'll see.  love to you all back home