Selçuk and Ephesus

Our destination the next day is Selçuk, the former ancient city of Ephesus. After sampling a number of the most enormous peaches I have ever seen, we catch the car ferry across the Dardanelles to Çanakkale where we stop briefly to pose with the horse used on “Troy” the film, which is about as close as we can be bothered looking into the legend of Troy at this point!

The drive takes the best part of a day and we arrive at the “Villa Dreams” in the late afternoon.

We are spending five nights here and there is a pool and a menagerie of animals. We also happen to be virtually the only guests, although Veysel, our host, spends a lot of time entertaining friends and family around the pool which gives the place a feeling of home, although most of his Turkish visitors speak little English.

Veysel is very keen to find a girlfriend and seems particularly keen on seeing photos of my sister. I explain that if he’s hoping for a biological family, she may be a lost cause. He doesn’t mind, he’s happy to adopt. I’ll pass that on. His tenderness and care of animals is a bit of a selling point if any of you are looking for a change of lifestyle.

Despite this being one of the most famous sites of Ancient Rome, I didn’t come here during my stint in Turkey. The family I worked for, flew down to Fethiye and hired a boat and we spent our time between an expensive family resort and the boat. We later travelled up through Bodrum to Cesme where we spent another couple of weeks. I went from feeling like I was on home detention in Istanbul to feeling completely incarcerated on a small boat in the Aegean. My romantic ideas of life on the sea went out the window when it transpired that I would be sharing a cabin with the children in mid summer with no windows. Not to mention that the sails on the boat were mainly for show and we spent most of the time motoring. It’s a wonder the children’s first English words were not “F#*% Off”.

Anyway, back to the holiday at hand. Every day that passes here, my traumatic earlier time in Turkey fades into obscurity and is replaced with new bright memories.

We spend half a day on the coast, swimming off the rocks and exploring the area.

The best thing about Villa Dreams, other than the amazing breakfast that we are served every day, is the multitude of quiet secluded spots around the garden and on the front balcony. I find a quiet corner looking out to the Fortress of Selcuk, where I can’t be spotted by anyone from my family and I catch up with letters and my blog writing.

The temperature has climbed again now that we are further South and we spend our first three days catching up with school work in the shade and swimming.

Our trip to Ephesus, historical site, down the road starts off like so many of our Egypt historical visits where we are the only people. Just as we are marvelling at the novelty of being the only tourists in a site of extreme historical importance, we spot about two thousand people coming down the hill from the top entrance. We make a dash for the Celsius library where if we are quick, we can enjoy a minute of time alone before we are assaulted by selfie sticks.

I must say that Ephesus seems to be primarily reconstructed by the Austrians who funded its archaeological restoration. There is something beautiful about exploring old things in their natural state of decay. This is not the case here, although it is very cool to walk what was a living street from over 2000 years ago. Particularly before the two thousand other people arrived.

In the terraced houses which have recently been excavated and were apparently “not there when I was here twenty years ago” says Roger, there are some amazing mosaics and paintings. I can’t say I’d want the two women below, painted on my bedroom wall but perhaps tastes have changed over 2000 years.

It might be said that some of these sites might be a little dull without a giant stork nest on top of them. They have made their homes on nearly every available column around town.

At the Basilica of Saint John, which sits below the fortress and castle above Selcuk, the tomb of John the Baptist is said to lay. Apparently John promised Jesus, before his death, that he would look after Mary and so when John and Mary fled Jerusalem to escape a likely death after Jesus’ crucifixion, they came here to Ephesus where Mary had a beautiful house in the forest and followers of John later built the Basilica around his tomb.

Roger, as he often does in sites of religious importance, starts behaving inappropriately and shouts to us as he engages in a self baptism with the water bottle in the baptism pool.

We all scatter, keen to put as much space as we can between him and ourselves. The kids have become quite adept at this skill.

Having been raised by a liberal but religious mother who later become an Anglican priest after much study of church history and ancient Greek, my religious historical knowledge is not too bad. Whilst I am an atheist, I have enjoyed visiting these special sites and I think a lot about my mother today and how interesting she would have found the last few days. If I was to quiz her now on any of her religious or historical knowledge, I imagine that she would struggle to remember, as her Alzheimer’s has left her with a scant memory of her once impressive knowledge.

At the front gates of the Basilica, we encountered a shady character who came out from behind a tree and explained that he was part of the archaeological team who were currently excavating the site. He pulled out of his pocket a bundle of tissue-wrapped coins which he had apparently found on site.

Over five months of travelling we have become very scam-savvy and the kids devised a plan to try and sell him a bunch of ancient cigarette butts that they also excavated from the site. They spent some time making art work in the dirt while Louie collected a good handful of “ancient specimens”.

I must say that it becomes really tedious having people trying to sell bogus things to you all the time and I did applaud their cheeky gumption, even though the guy looked like he wanted to punch us.

We drove off quickly to find some more storks.

I would hazard a guess that Roger is uncomfortable with religion. At Jesus’ mum’s house, he spent a bit of time talking about bursting into flames and becoming the Antichrist. It was really embarrassing, especially considering the number of people who had clearly come to sit and reflect.

I found the situation of the house truly beautiful and restful and was strangely moved by being there. Perhaps imaging a life in which I lived peacefully in hiding. These fantasies have been increasing lately.

We headed to the Ephesus museum in the afternoon, to see the collections of more precious artefacts that came from the sites around the area.

Most interesting, other than the Goddess Diana covered in bulls testicles, was a little pottery plate that matched exactly a small piece of ceramic that I had found laying in the dust near the Basilica. The plate was at least 3000 years old and a fight quickly ensued about who was going to look after the piece and were or were they not going to be arrested for trying to take it out of the country.

The next day we bid farewell to Veysel and our animal friends at the Villa Dreams, assuring him that I will bring my sister back, the first chance I get!