Day 261: Ephesus

Ephesus was an ancient Greek, then Roman city just outside of Selçuk in Turkey. We climbed a trail behind our guesthouse and then followed the road down to the back gate of the ancient city. It was calm and quiet until we arrived at the gate. Ephesus was packed. We were warned that cruise ships unloaded at nine, but it seemed that regular bus tours unloaded around ten thirty, when we arrived. We tried to wait out the groups, sitting in the theater, people watching. But it didn’t seem to matter, groups and groups of people continued to stream in, so we eventually got up and made our way through the surprisingly big city!

A woman at our guesthouse encountered a snake along the trail the day before, I think Andrew was relieved we only encountered a little turtle instead.

There’s a house of the Virgin Mary atop the hill outside of Ephesus. It’s believed she spent her last days there. We didn’t climb up the hill, but stopped at this statue for a picture. We had to wait for a few groups of American tourists to take their picture in front of the statue in certain groups of friends, then family, then friends AND family. They offered to take a picture of me and Andrew in front of the statue. I politely declined, insisting we already had a few pictures together…

This is where we sat for awhile. If it wasn’t so sunny and hot, we probably would have stayed longer. I love sitting and soaking up my surroundings and if there are many, I try to embrace the tourists around. There were a LOT of Americans and because we’ve encountered so few Americans on this trip, I wondered if this was their first time abroad (for some) and why Turkey (for others). I marveled at how easy Americans are to identify. We are a loud people. We tend to have a presence of making ourselves seen rather than allowing ourselves to see. We wear shorts. We wear flip flops. I don’t know if any of this makes any sense, but these are things you pick up on about “your people” in my case, my fellow Americans when you’ve been outside of America for so long.

Despite the heat and the throngs of tourists (still something we are adjusting to after being in countries with sparse tourism and/or few visitors) it was incredibly interesting to walk through. And as always, made me wonder what life must have been like when the city was in its heyday. For me, it’s the ancient times that seem so glamorous especially when the grandeur of the city is so immense like it was in Ephesus.

The most impressive part of the city was without a doubt, the library. I overheard a tour guide say that it has been rebuilt, but it seems to have been rebuilt rather well – without the use of obvious concrete like we saw in a few other parts of the ancient city.

Even when we walked out, it was through more ruins that you simply couldn’t believe were still standing and added to the size of the ancient city.

The ancient city also held the Temple of Artemis (one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World). This wasn’t within the current day grounds of Ephesus and we had to walk a few kilometers back towards Selcuk to see the singular remaining column of the ancient wonder. It was one of those “Wonder of the Ancient World… Check” moments and then we weaved our way back out to the road, dodging tour buses until we were back on the highway deciding to walk back to our guesthouse.

Our guesthouse was two kilometers outside of the city. We had already walked to Ephesus, then to Artemis… Walking all the way back to our guesthouse probably wasn’t the best idea, but we made it and then collapsed, yet again outside of the pool until dinnertime.

Day 253: Hadrian’s Gate

Hadrian’s Gate is one of the few ruins in Antalya to see. We happened to stumble upon it looking for bus companies to book our tickets to Goreme. I’m glad we did, because even though it’s not as spectacular as other ruins, it’s still pretty incredible to think that this was built in the year 130. Yea, you read that right. 130. It was built for the Roman Emperor Hadrian who visited that year.

Apparently city walls were built around the gate and it wasn’t used for awhile, which is why perhaps it’s in such good condition these days. After being in Africa, where the history is mostly oral, it’s really incredible to be in a land overflowing with visual history. Afterwards, we swung by the bazaar, and much like the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul, I was a little dismayed at the majority of the market being more knock-off bags, rhinestone studded Euro jeans, knock-off sunglasses, knock-off shoes, etc. etc. etc. We didn’t stay long.

Early in the evening, after figuring out where exactly the bus company was, we were able to purchase tickets and get a “service” ride to the station for our overnight bus to Goreme.

Day 141: Caesarea

“Why did you go to Caesarea?” Anat (our friend we were staying with in Tel Aviv, in case you forgot) asked us after hearing about our adventure there and back.

“All of the books and travel pages recommended it. It’s ‘Number THREE’ on Trip Advisor.” I told her. She laughed. Ron laughed.

“You should have asked us where to go instead.” She responded.

We should have, but we didn’t, and we regretted it. Caesarea does not belong on any top ten list, let alone top three list of places to go in Israel. Perhaps our experience would have been lightyears better if we:

1. had a car

2. arrived earlier in the day instead of within an hour of closing time at 4pm (Thanks to the bus-train-taxi combination it took to get there)

3. and a budget that could have afforded a fresh (and expensive) seafood dinner at one of the Mediterranean seafront restaurants

But we didn’t have any of the above, and our adventure getting there and back infuriated Andrew, and amused me. We came to the conclusion that Israel is not at all a country for backpackers on a budget. It’s like the country is specifically designed for ‘Birthright’and wealthy Jewish tourists checking out their homeland. No offense, Israel. (Or… maybe that would be a satisfactory assessment of the Israeli tourism industry and pats on backs all around?)

“Had you known Israel was going to be like this, would you still have come?” Andrew asked, referring to how expensive it is and how much Haifa and now Caesarea felt like a disappointment.

“Yes. But I would have stayed in Jerusalem, gone to Palestine longer, and checked out Tel Aviv on the weekends.” I replied. Again, no offense, Israel.

Ok, so let’s back up for a minute- in case you’re unfamiliar with the term ‘Birthright’ (as was I until stepping foot in Israel) I went to Wikipedia for a definition for you: Taglit-Birthright Israel (also Birthright Israel or Birthright) is a not-for-profit educational organization that sponsors free 10-day heritage trips to Israel for Jewish young adults. Its goals are to diminish the division between Israel and Jewish communities around the world and to strengthen participants’ personal Jewish identity and connection to Jewish history and culture.

According to some older grad school ‘Birthright’ trippers that we met in Haifa, one of them admitted “It’s SO contrived.” But the entire group also admitted how awesome it was to have an entire trip to Israel (flight, accommodation, tours, etc.) paid for. I would be lying if I didn’t admit to being jealous. This country is super expensive. For example: coffee and a croissant in the morning costs around $8.00. I wouldn’t mind paying so much for that if all of my transportation and accommodation was covered!

So, all of these trips have buses and tour guides and everything laid out on a red carpet for the ‘Birthright kids’ in hopes they will be convinced to move back to the homeland. Meanwhile, Andrew and I look up Ceserea on the internet- find out we can take a train and then either a bus or a taxi to the historical site, and we go from there. What. a. mess.

Our taxi driver overcharges us. By the time we arrived, we had forty minutes to sprint through the ruins that were initially built by Herod the Great as the port city of Caesarea Maritima around 25 BCE. Being right on the coast, the view of the Mediterranean was unbeatable- but the ‘park’ itself was full of construction  materials that were left out giving the park an unkempt, and shabby appearance.

“Basically, anything you have to pay for in Israel isn’t worth it.” Andrew declared. I think he’s on to something. Both Masada and now Caesarea let us down. Both had overpriced entry fees, and not a whole lotta bang for our buck- er- shekel. The Old City in Jerusalem, The Dead Sea, The Baha’i Gardens, even The Holocaust Museum, were all free and worth our while -most sites I would even go as far as saying they were incredible!

After we got kicked out of the ruins- lit’rally- kicked out when it closed at 4pm (in the winter months only) we discovered there were absolutely no taxis waiting to take tourists back to the train station or to the nearest bus station. We doubled back to the promenade full of restaurants offering free wifi and both looked up how to get back to Tel Aviv from Caesarea on our phones. All of our findings agreed: “By car.” Except one that offered up a bus stop right off the highway 2 km away. We walked. We waited for an hour for the bus to arrive. We made it back to Tel Aviv, bought some convenient store hummus (which was surprisingly delicious) and beers (which were surprisingly cheap), and called it a night.