Ephesus! At last, Ephesus! Ephesus, glorious Ephesus! Glorious Greek ruins, glorious underground city. The remains of the Greek Empire, who once ruled over Turkey!
Our tour bus pulled up in the parking lot. Boy, did I feel like a full-on tourist! Our guide, Gul (pronounced Gool) already had our tickets. We went through, and she started telling stories about the Greek Gods and Goddesses. Thanks to the Percy Jackson series (by Rick Riordan), I knew most of their names!
The ruins were gorgeous, and Gul explained how the archeologists had to dig down, trusting only a few columns sticking out of the ground! 250,000 people lived there! Wow! They knew the size of the population because. . .
Our tour bus pulled up in the parking lot. Boy, did I feel like a full-on tourist! Our guide, Gul (pronounced Gool) already had our tickets. We went through, and she started telling stories about the Greek Gods and Goddesses. Thanks to the Percy Jackson series (by Rick Riordan), I knew most of their names!
The ruins were gorgeous, and Gul explained how the archeologists had to dig down, trusting only a few columns sticking out of the ground! 250,000 people lived there! Wow! They knew the size of the population because. . .
of the amphitheater (I'll get to that later), which could fit 25,000 people, and their estimate was that a certain number more of slaves would add another '0' onto the population. There was a special tented area where archeologists were still digging out the houses! I would've liked to go, but there was so much to see already, and it cost extra.
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My favourite places were the amphitheater, men's toilets, and library. The amphitheater, as most know, is where the gladiators fought to the death. Mom said later that it would be really hard for the men, because one of them HAS to die, and they had been training together. Gul also explained how they didn't feed lions, and kept them cooped up in a cage for days. Then they'd let the lions free on stage, pushing into the center a slave... And you can imagine what happened next. Also, they had even more disturbing shows with naked women on boats. Eventually Christians came into power, and banned that show in particular from the theater. Apparently it's okay to kill and slaughter, but when it comes to naked issues, it's horrible. Don't get me wrong, I don't think EITHER sources of entertainment are okay.
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The men's toilets had no separation, and were just holes in stone, which emptied out into a ditch underneath. A stone gutter ran along the edge of the path, and was normally filled with water for hand washing. The men used their bathroom time to talk social and gossip! I couldn't help but imagine some funny scenes going on in there. . .
The library was very big, with three statues carved into the front. It's front was three stories, and the other two stories were supported by columns. The inside was crumbling and open-air, with hardly any walls, but the architects had somehow put buried plaques back on the wall, supposedly in the right position. Gul said it used to be filled with scrolls! I could just picture it, shelves and all!
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There were SO many cats! Cats here, cats there, cats everywhere... There was probably every type of cat, just missing siamese. There were lying in the sun, draped over ruins, and I swear I could make a whole picture book of all the cats - of course, after a hundred pages it would get quite boring.
After Ephesus we went to a carpet demonstration and learned how they knotted carpets. It's always been a wonder to me how they make that fluffy top part yet have such a scratchy bottom. Well, it's pretty much the loom and skeleton of the carpet and what they call 'double knots'. We also went to a buffet lunch, which was delicious!
Bye,
Allie
Bye,
Allie
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