Sunday, July 27, 2014

Our port is Kusadasi, Turkey. It is very large and looks nice. We weren't able to spend anytime in the port itself as we were on our tour most of the day. I think it is somewhere I would like to come back to and stay longer one day. There seems like there is a lot to see and do.




So, I said that the ruins by Marmaris were cool (and they were), but the ruins at Ephesus are extraordinary. Take a look at these:








This amphitheater can hold 22,000 people and concerts are still being held there today. Crazy!

There is a ton of history at Ephesus and so much more to be excavated. There is a lot of information on Ephesus – just need to Google it as it would be too much go write in here. :-)

From Ephesus our tour takes us to a small village called Sirince. What is interesting about this village? One, it is very pretty and perched within the Turkish mountains; but the really interesting part is that was part of a population exchange between the Greeks and Turks in the early 1900s. Approximately 2 million people were forced to move from their homes in Turkey to go to Greece and vice versa. The homes built in Sirince to house some of these people are still there today and we were lucky enough to have lunch in one of them cooked by an 87 year old woman! It was fantastic!










It is a little hard to tell from the photo, but the chairs were about the size of those for kids and the table the height of an average coffee table. That was all part of the charm. I think both Ron and I agree this was the best tour we had been on. Now there was more to the tour where we had Turkish coffee which was great, but then our guide read our fortunes using the left over grounds from our coffee. That part was a little hokey but up until that part, a great tour.

Tomorrow we sail into Istanbul for our last full day on the cruise.

Location:Ephesus, Turkey