Fourth Port of Call - Izmir & Ephesus

On Friday, 2 April, we arrived at Izmir, Turkey. We didn't need an At Sea day for this. Izmir is the modern name for the city of Smyrna, one of the seven churches listed in the Book of Revelations in the Bible. The first thing that struck us, and continued to impress us, was how clean and modern Turkey is. We expected it to be old, run down and dirty. However, we soon learned that Turkey has been busy rebuilding since the 1950's to recover from WWII. Living where we have, we have not experienced a requirement to rebuild of this nature. So most of what we saw is only a little more than 50 years old at the most. As usual we wanted to find out the price of gas. The service stations did not have gas prices so we asked. Apparently it is $9 per gallon. At one of our lunches we sat with a very proper couple from Norway. At the end of lunch he made a revealing comment. He said, "One thing that really bothers us about Americans is when they complain about their price of gas - they have nothing to whine about". After telling us the price of gas our tour guide went on to say that is why you don't see many cars more than 1.4L and if they are bigger they are only 1.6L. There always is a solution.

Here are some photos as we entered the Port of Izmir. As usual we took photos of typical scenes in the city.

Getting to Ephesus require a 45 minute bus ride but it did get us out into the countryside. Here are some photos of the typical Turkish countryside between Izmir and Ephesus.

At Ephesus we were welcomed by an incredible piece of history. Most of Ephesus has been buried under sediment for many centuries. It was discovered by chance in the late 1800's and excavation begun. It continues to this day. But it was a major Roman City for trade. Apostle Paul visited Ephesus and wrote the Book of Ephesians to the church there. Legend says that Mary, the mother of Jesus died here as well as Luke and John. The Island of Patmos, where John wrote the Book of Revelation is just off the coast. In fact, Ephesus was another of the seven churches that John wrote about in the Book or Revelations. Here are photos of Ephesus and they begin from entering the city on the East side and working down to what used to be the old harbor.

Our tour guide gave us several interesting insights into Turkey. Education, all the way through college is free and health care is free. Tourism is the second most important industry so tour guides have to get a bachelors degree, then three years of tour guide school and then they have to work as interns for six months in the area that they will be operating as tour guides. Since tourism is high and the fact that the government does not want to lose indigenous art skills, they operate Turkish rug making schools and facilities throughout the country. Turkish rugs are made of silk or cotton, both of which they claim are some of the strongest in the world. Silk on silk rugs are obviously the most expensive because they have the most knots per inch. The rugs are not woven but knotted and, with the most expensive, double-knotted. Here are some a few photos of the rug making facility we visited and the rug we purchased. As part of the tour of this facility we saw some of the most amazing and expensive rugs (like $40,000) you could imagine. Some of the designs are incredible.

Finally we had to say goodbye to Turkey. We were pleasantly surprised and pleased with our visit there. Here are a few photos as we left.

Next Port of Call is Egypt where we spent one day in Cairo and another day in Alexandria.