The Best Day so far!

The day started early as the ship docked about a half hour early and so we were down the gangplank and took a short walk to where all the tour buses were lined up and there our tour leader Tim from Vancouver, Washington went ahead to meet our guide Hulya, for the day in Ephesus. The 12 of us got on to the 14 passenger van and we were off to drive through the bustling port city of Izmir, Turkey. The landscape was beautiful as we past flowering peach trees, olive groves, flowering almond trees, and cotton fields. Mountainous regions and pastoral regions mixed with bustling cities, strewn with fortresses, columns and ancient ruins and after about an hour drive we arrived at Mary’s house at the top of Nightingale Mountain. Jesus had asked the apostle John to care for his mother Mary before he was crucified and he brought her to this place in 34AD ..It was a very weaving, long road up to the top of the mountain where John thought Mary would be safe from the Romans. It was a very spiritual feeling as we walked through what would have been her living room and bedroom. You were not allowed to speak and the silence added to the reverence we felt. We took pictures from outside and then back onto our van to head to Ephesus. Ephesus is the best-preserved ancient city in the Eastern Mediterranean. It is absolutely impossible to explain the sites we saw as we walked about one mile through columns, temples, library, bath house, brothels, houses, theatre, latrines (marble rows of holes where everyone sat beside their neighbour to do their duty...see picture),and a 24000 seat amphitheatre with the seating still intact, plus much more. This area is huge but what is amazing that only about 13% has been excavated so far. I took 120 pictures today, so that shows how amazed we were with everything we saw.
Next we went to the Terrace Houses. This is an area on the side of Mt Coressus, where they are excavating what would have been 3 story luxurious homes (like our condos today only much much bigger) of the very rich. They have uncovered room after room with frescos on the walls, mosaics on the floors which are all being put back together by archaeologists and workers. It is amazing what they are finding. They had bathrooms, running hot water, sewers, heating, kitchens, etc. Truly the highlight of the day for us, it is amazing as not many tours go here, thousands of tourists in the ruins outside but only our group inside.
Our day ended with a visit to Sirince, a beautiful hill town where we ate a Turkish lunch of a type of Turkish pizza and Turkish beer and then wandered the small streets where vendors were selling all types of souvenirs, olive oil , evil eye jewellery, wine, and lots of hand made table cloths etc. we headed back to the ship through very busy traffic and made it to the ship just in time for sailing.
We are ready for another sea day to rejuvenate and rest in readiness for Egypt. Sunday we will be in Cairo and Monday in Alexandria.
We have now turned back the clock one hour so we are only 8 hours ahead of you in Saskatchewan.