The Old World

“There are two types of education… one should teach us how to make a living, and the other how to live.”

-         John Adams

Ephesus is said to have been one of the largest cities of the ancient Roman Empire.  Our guide told us this, in fact.  He told us it was the third largest among them.  Let’s assume, then, that it was the fifth or sixth largest among them.  No matter its former population – 250,000 according to our guide – its intricacies were fascinating, and its beauty was quite something.  We spent most of the morning walking through the ancient roads and looking at all the ancient sculptures and columns abound.  We saw the residential section full of houses, the library which could have been mistaken for a palace, the bath houses where aristocrats would take their baths together and socialize, the jail, the government buildings, the recreation halls, the market street, and of course the stadium.  It was not difficult to imagine what the city might have been like if it were around today.  The white marble has not faded much, but polished under the sun it would have been mesmerizingly bright and impressive.  A traveling diplomat would have surely been stunned upon arriving from the Aegean Sea and stepping off his ship at the port and making his way to the city center.  If he could keep his eyes off the hustle and bustle of the streets and look out to the mountain sides where the colors purple and yellow dominated every flower patch, he might even think he was in paradise.  Let’s forget how many slaves died building the city, and how many beggars must have been at its outskirts unable to get in.  If we do this, the city remains untouched by negativity.  After we had seen everything Ephesus had to offer, we had lunch and then left.

            The house of the Virgin Mary is located 5 miles from Ephesus on the top of a mountain; this is where we went next.  It cannot be verified, but it is assumed that the Virgin Mary was brought here by John the Apostle towards the end of her life.  The house itself was not discovered until the 1800’s following a vision by a Roman Catholic nun far away.  As we were on our way to the site, our guide managed to slip his voice into a crack in our conversation and widen it up so much that we were all presently paying attention to him as he began to throw out one questionable fact after the other; he was the kind of man who did this often, and so was a professional at it.  He saw himself as a stage performer while most of us saw him as a man blocking the windows.  There were several occasions where he would even keep us from taking a nap by mentioning the detailed steps to how pomegranate juice is squeezed.  As it was, we were on our way up the mountain and pretending to listen to him talk about the Virgin Mary, when suddenly the skies opened up and hail began to barrage our van with tremendous power and accuracy.  Not a single hailstone was wasted it seemed, for every last one of them made contact with our van and produced a deafening thunder of sound and vibration.  It got to the point where our guide had to stop his ramblings because we could not hear a word he was saying.  If there was a skeptic as to who lived in the house atop that mountain before, surely they were believers now.  And if ever mercy has been given, it was by her to us at this very moment.  We were all thankful.

            After Ephesus and Izmir, our group took a flight to Antalya.  It is one of the southern most cities in all of Western Turkey and known by many Europeans as a getaway vacation spot.  To most Americans it has never been heard of.  They may think of it as the Bahamas or Jamaica in the sense that is a place where a couple would have a wedding and perhaps even stay for the honeymoon.  The city is purely Mediterranean and couldn’t be mistaken as being anywhere else if seen on a picture or a post card; from the style of the buildings to their red tiled roofs, and from the brightly colored plants to the aqua colored water.  There are even snow capped peaks in the distance for good measure.  Our group took a boat tour under the sea side cliffs in order that we see all of this from the water.  It looked the same but with a cool sea breeze adding to it.  It would have looked like the coast of Italy or Greece if not for the mosques.  We took our time on the water and swam in the Mediterranean for some time before heading back to the docks.  I couldn’t help but think all the while that this was a city begging to be part of Europe.  It sure felt that it could be.

I should mention the food as well.  Now would be a good time for that considering how much we ate in Antalya, and also considering the beautiful places we did it in; but I ought to think it would take up too much space for now, and that I would not be able to do it justice, so it shall be saved for a later time.  It is back to Istanbul for us now.