Oct 30 – Kuşadasi, Turkey

Weather – 15º, sunny

Temple of Artemes of Ephesia

Steps – 8,755

Kuadasi (pop. 130,000) is a large resort town on Turkey’s Aegean coast. We have been here before, so don’t feel the need to repeat visits to the main sights of the area. Because of that, we picked a tour that was a bit more obscure.

Food is the highlight of the tour. We start with a 45 min drive to Selcuk, the city where the main sights such as Ephesus and the house of the Virgin Mary are. As usual, on the way there, the guide, Sarah, tell us all about the area and what we will see and do on the tour.

Welcomm to Kusadasi!

We first had a 10 min visit to the archeological site of the Temple of Artemis of Ephesia. There is very little uncovered here, mostly one large column. Sarah told us all everything she had to tell us on the bus, so 10 min was ample.

Then we drove past Ephesus, saw the ubiquitous Turkish shoeshine guy, and saw the statue of the Virgin Mary presented by the Vatican.

nothing better!

St John the Evangelist burial site

Lunch was the main event – we started with a meze plater of vegetables, a feta dip, bread, and roasted eggplant. Then we had grilled meat skewers, meat balls, rice and salad. Dessert was a caramel
type pudding. This was accompanied by beer and wine. It all was good, but not great. I’m not usually hard to please in the food dept, but I was feeling a bit meh about the whole thing. We ate with some great people though and that was fun. We sat in the outdoor area at the front of the restaurant which was lovely. A cat kept me company the whole lunch. Cats are everywhere again!

St John the Evangelist burial site

After the tour we thought we might have an Iskender, (a Turkish fast food type meal with grilled meat, with bread, and a tomato and yogurt sauce), that I have had in Turkey before and LOVE, but I was way too full!

shoe shine guy

We also thought we might find a place to smoke a hookah…I didn’t see one hookah the entire time we were in Istanbul or today! There used to be hookah smoking at every single bar/restaurant. Now if  someone wants to offer hookah at their establlishment, they need a special licence that allows smoking indoors - basically it needs to be a private club. Probably a good thing – it’s hardly good for you, but it is fun once every 5 years or so when we’re in a hookah smoking area, so we were kinda bummed.

lunch meze

The Kusadasi waterfront area was bustling. We wandered a bit thinking we might stop for a beer, but just weren’t feeling it, so we headed back to the boat for a late afternoon sit on the balcony.

Tonight is the second last night of the cruise – that means Krew Kapers, the crew talent show. I try not to miss it. No one is every particularly good, but it’s fun and I like to support them.

The after-dinner show tonight was a one-woman show put on by one of the ship’s entertainment team’s vocalists – Floor, from the Netherlands. She

Vingin Mary monument

was great. We knew her voice was great from when she performed with the whole group, and once again she proved that. We chatted with Floor a bit earlier in the cruise, so it was nice to see her on the stage. She was every bit as good or better than some of the guest entertainers.

lunch friend

Mom – In fact, the association of lesbianism and Lesbos originated with the Sappho story, or so we were told.

Stacey – good point, anyone can actually come for 3 days of peace and meditation at no cost.

Krew Kapers