June 27th: Efes
After leaving Ayvalik in the morning, we "quickly" stop for a swimming break at Ceren's parents' summer place.
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| Beach. The island in the background is Lesbos - belongs to Greece, as most of the islands you can see from the Turkish coast. |
Then we hit the road ! Towards Efes.
Efes (Ephesus) is an ancient city quite well conserved. In particular, a theater, a library, and "every day life" buildings. You could really imagine life at the time.
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| Theater. |
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| General view of (part of) the site. |
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| Library. |
The function of some of the places is really explicit ...
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| Public toilets ;-) |
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| A demo, in case you don't understand how to use it. |
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| Always with the camera in hand ! |
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| Super-star. |
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| Did I mention that there are cats everywhere in Turkey ? |
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| I like taking pictures through weird places ! |
In a remote part of the site, there was an ancient church, which had some importance in history, but I don't remember ... (shame). But I was probably not in my "normal state", since some pictures show I have been ... baptized !?
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| Baptized ... Not sure it counts, though: I guess Ali is not entitled to perform baptism ! |
June 27th: Sirince
After Efes, we went to a village close-by, called Sirince (pronounce "Shirindje", sorry, the I can't do the turkish "Sh" letter !). Quite touristic, but very nice village, in (low) mountains, narrow streets, mosque, and a very cool hotel once again: we had a whole house for all of us ! Note that for that night, we were only 5, since some were already in Izmir to take a plane the next morning.
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| Sirince. |
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| Narrow streets, down the church. |
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| The Mosque. |
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| A cool picture taken by Laura ... Sirince by night is kinda psychedelic ! |
On the next morning, the group split: David, Giulio and Silvia left towards Izmir, while Laura and I continued towards the South: Gökova.
You were baptized in St Mary's church!!! She died in Ephesus!
ReplyDeleteThe best thing is that you're being baptized with mineral water and by a Muslim :-P
On est pas loin du blaspheme ... :-)
ReplyDeleteI seem really strong in the toilet demo!! :-P
ReplyDeleteWe spent a long weekend in Istanbul by http://www.packagetoursturkey.com We had o idea where to visit but this tour company guided us and made our stay very enjoyable.
ReplyDeleteThey communicated well through email prior to our visit, explaining all details and did not require money up front. We paid after the event. They picked us up from the airport and escorted us to the hotel, arranged a private guided tour around the city with and excellent English speaking guide. (his knowledge and English accent were perfect). The company had purchased tickets for the palace in advance which meant we did not have to queue.
In the evening we were collected from our hotel and taken to a boat for an evening dinner cruise with entertainment. A most enjoyable evening.
We were also collected from our hotel in good time for our return trip to the airport.
All prices were very reasonable.They are to be recommended.