September 28, 2014

We awoke to another cloudy morning. The coastline was slightly blurry.  The temperature was about 18, but there was a strong wind as the Captain had predicted. The surprise this morning was very little water pressure.  We found out that a water pipe on the portside of deck 2 had broken and leaked into a stateroom about 4:30 a.m.  There was no coffee, tea, orange juice or cooked cereal for breakfast at 7, but shortly after 7:30 the water was back at full pressure. There were few people in the dining room before 7:45 when the normal amount of people started to arrive.  We had time to go five decks up to the Oceanview Café and it did not seem too busy for a day in port. During breakfast the ship arrived at the Kusadasi harbour, but had to wait for the Regal Princess, which was late arriving, to dock first which only delayed the excursion group leaving the ship by 15 minutes.

  The Regal Princess also was sending passengers on tours so there were well over 35 buses and thousands of people trying to find their proper tour bus. Our group met our guide, Ilker, and we were on our way (for our eight hour tour) to the furthest point of our day, Miletus, Turkey, about a 70 minute drive from Kusadasi. On the bus, in each seat was a bottle of water and a small bag that contained a comment card, to complete at the end of the day, a map of Kusadasi, plus a souvenir pin and souvenir necklace. On the drive we learned that Anatolia is the name for the central Turkey region.  There are over 4,500 Greek and Roman ruins discovered in Turkey compared to only 2,000 in Italy and Greece combined.  Ner Roma was the first name of the settlement where Istanbul is now located, before the name was changed to Constantinople. Miletus is known as the native city of several philosophers and sages. One of the philosophers proved that the earth was round almost 2,000 years before Galileo, but the information was lost in the fire of the library in Alexandria sometime near the end of Cleopatra’s Egyptian rule. Near Miletus, there is a river called the Meanderer which has meandered in the area for thousands of years and deposited silt as it flowed into the sea, which eventually caused the sea to recede many miles away from the ancient harbours and the cities were abandoned hundreds of years after their founding.  The area is now a fertile farming region, where cotton is grown as well as corn, olive trees and fruit trees. To transport the local cotton harvests, the British were helping to build a railway in the area, in the 1870s.  At that time, they also excavated ruins of Miletus and other places, then shipped  many of the pieces to England. For our tour of the ancient Miletus site our guide distributed radios, so that we could hear him even if we were 50 meters away from him. The first ruin was the amphitheatre, which is pre-Roman and has a Roman addition which added arched tunnels and more seats and an addition of a shopping arcade. At this 15,000 seat amphitheatre, the apostle, Paul gave his last speech in Asia Minor before returning to the Holy Land and then imprisonment in Rome.  A short drive away is the Milet Muzesi, the archeological museum that traces the habitation of the area to the late Chalcolithic period, in the second half of the fourth millennium B.C. The people occupied the area from Anatolia to the Aegean Islands, but by the mid Bronze Age the Minovean tribe influence increased.  After an hour and a half walking around the site and visiting the museum, we headed for the next stop at Didyma which was an oracle center where the elegant Temple of Apollo was built. The first one was sacked and destroyed and a second one begun but never completed.  After Alexander the Great gave money to reconstruction the original Temple of Apollo, destroyed by the Persians, the people decided that since visiting dignitaries gave donations to the building, it should never actually be finished.  In 400 B.C., it was on an island, but there is no water near it today.  The Roman merchants of Miletus, decided to build a 17 km marble road to Didyma to encourage visits to their city, there is a 1 km recovered segment at Didyma, still in good shape. The marble used in the ancient building was quarried locally. Excavations of the Temple of Apollo began in the 1870s by French then German archeologists. Temples face west to the sunset.  When the Christian began to build churches, they faced them east to the sunrise. Purple was a difficult colour to produce in ancient times and in the Byzantine times it was reserved for royalty.  The colour purple was produced by boiling snails. The griffon, part eagle head and upper torso and part lion was the symbol of Apollo. There were many Greek and Roman carvings of Medusa in the ancient world, which was a warning for people not to damage a building. The Turks thought that she gave them the “Evil Eye” and had their own protection devised to protect themselves. By 12:30, we were back on the bus travelling on a four lane divided highway, on the way to Ephesus for a delicious Turkish buffet lunch at Cittantics including a table of a dozen hot foods and another table of salads, cheeses and cold cuts plus tea, coffee and a long table of desserts – pastries including baklava and an assortment of fruit. There were also some retail stores where Turkish tea, Turkish coffee and Turkish Delight candy in many flavours could be purchased and a souvenir store with books, jewellery, pottery and other souvenirs.

The guided walk through the Ephesus ruins was about 3 km, mostly downhill on stone flagged streets, with lots of photo stops. Only about 10% of this ancient city has been excavated. The first building to see is the Public Baths.  No one was allowed to enter the city without first enjoying the free baths, especially the sailors coming from long voyages. The harbour is now a valley. It took almost 90 minutes to stroll through the site with pauses of explanation from Ilker and exploration of the ruins. We saw the Magnesia Gate, Odeon (concert hall), Fountain of Trajan, Temple of Hadrian, residences where the mosaic floors are still visible, Library of Celsius (which was the second largest in the world after the library at Alexandria, Egypt, Grand Theater (which seated 25,000), the Arcadian Way and the Agora commercial market where the local residences had 77 shops on the four walls and the center area was for the visiting vendors to set up their wares. Then we had a 10 minute ride back to Kusadasi where the tour concluded with a brief Turkish carpet presentation just a short walk from the ship.

Other buses from three ships were returning, and after walking through the Grand Market and the shops on the pier, we lined up to go through port security. Then take the 400 meter walk to the ship as the wind continued to blow about 40 km per hour to board and go through ship security before returning to the stateroom to freshen up. We did manage to dance to a few tunes played by the  Ocean Band in the Rendez-vous, before dinner.  Our choices for dinner tonight were seafood crepe for the appetizer, then a Chicken Waldorf salad or New England Clam Chowder, followed by the entrée choice of Pork Schnitzel with hot German Potato Salad. The dessert choices were a white chocolate soufflé and Éclair dipped in dark chocolate. After dinner we went back to the stateroom to compose the blog.  Then went to the Café Al Bacio for a cold coffee, milk and crushed ice Iglu beverage, before turning in for the night. The evening show has been altered, since the multi-instrumentalist, Oli Nez’s arrival was delayed by weather. The replacement acts were Michael White with his close up magic and Kate Dowman, the singer. The Captain advises to walk carefully and grab onto walls if needed and do not go out on the decks. Tonight the ship was sailing across the Aegean Sea to Athens, in 4 meter high waves and strong winds.