John and Bethenie: Day 5 ~ Kusadasi, Turkey

September 1
Once again, we woke up, got ready and headed to the Windjammer Cafe for a nice big breakfast before our long day in Kusadasi, Turkey. They had such a variety at breakfast that you could get something different everyday and never get the same things. After finishing breakfast we headed up top to get a few pictures of Kusadasi from the port. Then we headed to our room to get everything we were going to need for the day.

Pigeon Island ~ a small island behind the port

First looks at Turkey

Again, we booked our tour through Royal Caribbean, and by the end of the day we were so happy we had. The tour we booked was the Biblical Ephesus Tour, and we were very pleased with our final choice. We debated back and forth on a couple different ones and finally ended on the Biblical one. One of our final reasons for this tour was, for the month and a half leading up to our cruise our preacher had preached through the book of Ephesians, so we had been learning about the town of Ephesus and Paul.

When we had all of our things from the room we headed down to our meeting point on the boat to get our bus sticker. We walked up to the workers and he asked if we were for the Historical Ephesus tour. We told him no, that we were on the Biblical Tour, so he looked at our tickets and gave us our number. After a little bit, a couple that we had met during the cruise walked up and we started talking and they asked what tour we were doing and we were both on the Biblical Tour only we had different numbers. I had been telling John I thought we had the wrong number and he kept telling me we were fine. When they called for our number they said it was Historical Ephesus, at that point I went up to the sticker guys and asked if we had the right number, and come to find out they had given us the wrong number. I am so glad we got that worked out before heading out on the wrong tour.

Once we were on the right bus we headed to the town of Ephesus, Turkey. There is so much history in this town and for as old it is was it was a very large town. The town is set in the valley of two mountains, so it is long and narrow. Our tour started at the highest point of the town and we walked our way down to the bottom of the town, where our bus picked us back up.

Walking out of the port to the bus

This group of people were performing and dancing when we came out of the port area

At the entrance to the town of Ephesus, there were a few souvenir shops and this one was selling "GENUINE FAKE WATCHES"

The small theater at the beginning of the town

Wing Nike ~ Goddess of Victory

The Gate of Hercules ~ this gate was at the beginning of Curetes Street

Looking down Curetes Street

John and I at the top of Curetes Street

The Fountain of Trajan

The Temple of Hadrian

The public Toilets in the center of the town

John and I in front of the Celsius Library

Arch ways that led to the marketplace area

Celsius Library

John trying to pick up a broken piece of a column in the library

Looking up at the front of the library

At the end of the town there was a small play that went every 15 min

The play was of Marc Antony and Cleopatra ~ Marc Antony coming in

Cleopatra and Marc Antony

Getting ready to leave

The Large Theater in Ephesus ~ this is the theater that St. Paul spoke in, in 54 AD

Stage of the theater

This theater was built in the 2nd century AD and had a capacity of 25000 people

When we left Ephesus we headed up to the top of the mountain behind Ephesus to where The Virgin Mary's House was located. It is believed that Mary moved to Ephesus around 9 or 10 years before she died and lived those last 9 or 10 years in Ephesus. Many people had tried for years to find Mary's house and finally in the beginning of the 19th century it was found on Mt. Koressos above Ephesus. They were finally able to find it due to the very descriptive visions from Anne Katherina Emmerich, a nun living in Germany.

The Baptistry ~ they filled it with water from the local spring that ran through the area

Mary's house

Prayer Wall

Scarfs for sell

We left Mary's house and went to a nearby restaurant for lunch. Our experience at the restaurant was very unique, we ate off of terracotta plates and the food was prepared the same as it was during biblical times.

The appetizer part of our lunch

The fish portion ~ no I didn't eat this it still had teeth attached

After lunch we headed to a local Carpet weaving school and store, where we got to watch and learn how carpets were made. The place we went to was pretty big and they had room after room of many different carpets. It was really neat to see how they are made, and yes it is all done by hand.

Watching the girls make a carpet ~ they usually take few months to make one carpet if it is made from cotton or wool and a couple of years to make a silk carpet

So much detail and all done by hand

My favorite of the ones we got to see

This very small silk carpet cost around $1400

One of many room filled with carpets

Our last stop on our tour was St. John's Cathedral and burial spot. There was not much left of his Cathedral, it is mostly all ruins, but his burial spot is very much taken care of. Where they have his tomb marked is above where they found his body. His body was found pretty far under the ground, due to the rising of the ground throughout the years.

Walking into the area of St. John's Cathedral

St. John's Tomb

Crusader's Church on the hill behind St. John's Cathedral

More of St. John's Cathedral

After visiting his St. John's Cathedral we boarded the bus and headed back to the port. This was why we were glad we did our tour through Royal Caribbean, we were supposed to be back on the ship no later than 4:30 and pulling away from the port at 5:00. We did not even get back to the port until 4:45 and still had to get through customs before boarding. Luckily, since we were on a Royal Caribbean tour the ship had to wait for us.

Once we were back on the ship we took it easy since we had just finished an 8 hour tour, we grabbed a snack, walked around and just relaxed till dinner. We had dinner in the dining room again, then headed to the Metropolis Theater for that nights show. That night the show was made up of two different acts, Michael Menes, a silent comedian/juggler and an aerial acrobatics act. Michael Menes kind of started driving me a little crazy but the acrobatics were really fun to watch.

Aerial Acrobatics ~ they were both from Australia