Ephesus is home to one of the best preserved Roman ruins in Turkey. Here’s an amphitheater. Here’s Medusa. And here are the public toilets, complete with the musician's area to entertain the relievers. Man, the Romans knew how to live. Since I’ve spent much time in Turkish toilets as of late, I found this sign to be amusing. Thus far I have failed to experience such magic. For the average Turk from a village, this flushing toilet device must be like manna from heaven. Here’s what village bathrooms look like, though this one is in a nice restaurant so it is a particularly upscale specimen. Any toilet paper in there?Best not to look. Moving right along we went swimming in the Aegean. Had Turkish coffee with a Turkish family in their home (Mehmet’s family, a nice young man from the university where Diana taught who showed us around). Mehmet took us to an old Ottoman village high up in a valley that grows olives, grapes, and makes many kinds of fruit wines. We had lunch at his uncle’s restaurant.
On to Troy, where we saw more ruins. This one has probably the oldest known wall in the world (dated to 3000 BCE, the pyramids are dated to 2700 BCE). And then to Cannakale, home to Gallipoli and the battlefield from WWI , where hundreds of thousands of men died (most from Australia and New Zealand in addition to the Ottomans). We hopped on a bus and a boat and spun back to Istanbul. Short and sweet. Ciao.
More photos: island we took a boat to to eat dinner, castle in Selcuk, the Sacred Ramp in Ephesus, inside Ankara mosque (I forgot to post this pic in an earlier post)
See the rest of our photos here: http://www.flickr.com/gp/10412955@N03/7gb96e
5 comments:
Wow, the senses must be overloaded and the quads must be in great shape after using those toilets for 2 weeks. Great idea having this blog. It is awesome to get updated on good friends having a great journey in such incredible places. Keep on truckin'
"the quads must be in great shape after using those toilets for 2 weeks."
You would think, but I've actually lost weight since coming here, EVEN WITH all the eating. I'm about to market the new Turkish weighloss program. It is very simple and anyone can follow it. The best part is that you can eat and drink as much as you want and anything you want. The American market is ripe for such an opportunity. Trick is, you have to come here to do it. Hmmm...
You guys suck. I wish I were there laughing with you and seeing the amazing things that you are seeing. Enjoy all the things you guys are seeing out there.
Thanks Chuck. It would have been nice at times to have you there with us. I would have loved to see your reaction to some of the situations we were in. Your humor would have been a needed comic relief when the goin' got weird.
Your blog keeps getting better and better! Your older articles are not as good as newer ones you have a lot more creativity and originality now keep it up!
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