Day 10 – 11

Picking up where I left off yesterday, we met back up to catch the ferry, which turned out to be a smooth ride, with some great scenery. We arrived in Turkey about 1.5 hours later at the same place where cruise ships dock. We had to wait in line to buy a visa and go have our passports checked, which also went very smoothly. It was actually just as quick as coming into Turkey than as it was England.

We walked to our hotel room about .5 – 1 mile away, and were pleasantly surprised to find it to be a nice place, good sized rooms, a pool on the roof – also with a great view of the water, and FREE internet!! Sounds to good to be true – well, in what makes no sense to me, the signal of the wireless internet will be full strength one second, then nothing the next and won’t connect again, but it does seem to work for extended periods of time. So, everything is looking good.

As far as our excursions this morning / afternoon, we headed for the site of ancient Ephesus – modern day Selcuk – where Paul traveled, planted a church, Timothy was a pastor, and also where John is said to have spent his retirement years. Compared to the other sites we’ve been to this one is by far the best. The Austrian government has partnered with Turkey over the last 100+ years, spending millions in excavations, and recreating this site. I’ll post more on this in the days to come as we will be spending a couple days going back there, as well as going to the museum in Selcuk which contains most of the finds from the Ephesus site.

Here are a few pics from the ferry ride over and from today, the Celsus Library at Ephesus, and an example on how the Turks are looking to make money on everything, and be funny at the same time!