Selcuk, Turkey

The bus station in Selcuk was smack dab in the middle of a bustling market and as we looked around to get our bearings, we were approached by a random local man who promptly escorted us through the market to our pension (guesthouse), waved to the owner and then headed back into the market. A 16 year old helped an old woman check us in, and we were shortly standing on our balcony looking down at the busy market. It flooded the street entirely and we couldn’t resist diving in… a minute later we were on a shopping spree for tomatoes, bell peppers, eggs, eriks, and apricots. We decided to self-cater our dinner that night and made Manti (Turkish ravioli) in our little boiling pot with veggies from the market.

The small town of Selcuk exists mostly because of tourists coming to visit Ephesus (an ancient Greek and later Roman city that is one of the Seven Ancient Wonders of the World) that was only a 30 minute walk from our pension. We set off to see the ruins along a bike path bordered by fruit trees and families having picnics. We arrived at the Ephesus grounds and were impressed with the substantial size of the ruined city which offered many places to wander. The well preserved stadium/theater and the rebuilt library façade were quite the attraction but our favorite spot was an almost life-like fountain:

We had mixed emotions while walking through the ruins of Ephesus. Some of the buildings have been left much like they existed in 41 B.C., yet some buildings have been put back together in a sort of jenga-like construction that made them look fake. There were some places where things clearly had been put in the wrong place, or upside down. Regardless, we had a great time admiring the ancient city…

After an long day of walking around the ruins, we were tired, and hot. So we thought we’d relax in our pension owner’s pool:

The pool was actually in a boutique resort just out of town that the owner of our pension had recently built and she was kind enough to drive us there and allow us to swim in her two week old salt water pool! It was like being in Napa Valley, but with olive groves, instead of grape vines.

Europcup soccer had just started, so we headed for the pubs. We watched Spain vs. Italy with some youngsters and some frosty mug beers and then England vs. France drinking tulip glass ĉay (tea) with the local old folks. While walking to one of the games we found the coolest sandwich bar and stopped for a tostu (panini) and a fresh mug of aryan (salty yogurt drink). We also made sure to try out a Selcuk specialty cuisine called “Çöp shis” (which is small little pieces of kebab literally translated to garbage sish kebab).