EPHESUS, PAMUKKALE, AND APHRODESIUS

Nov. 13, 2000
Artemis Guest House, Selçuk, Türkiye

The Artemis Guest House charged only 7 million lire for a double room, but they made up the difference by charging for breakfast. This was a fine arrangement, however, because they had a varied breakfast menu from which to choose and the food was good. We had fried eggs and tasty, if greasy, Turkish sausage. 

Meryemana

After breakfast, they gave us a free lift to Ephesus and then, for an extra 8 million lire, we convinced the driver to take us up to Meryemana, the Virgin Mary’s house, which was 7 kilometers further up a very steep hill. He took us up there and waited for us. The house, which was begun in the first century (of course) and added onto in the fourth and seventh centuries, was restored in the mid-eighteenth century when an invalid German nun, who had never left her country, had a vision and exactly described the location where Mary’s final home would be found. Her name was Anna Katarina Emmerich. When local Christians examined the spot, they found the foundations of a first century house. Thus, the place became a shrine for Christians and Muslims, who also revere Mary as a prophetess. 

Shrine at Meryemana

The house was set in a light-filled forest and there was a spring that was rumored to have healing properties. We got there just in time for mass, which was said in many languages, outside the shrine, on a terrace. The Italian version was celebrated by an Italian nun. There were several likenesses of Mary inside the shrine and lots of flowers. It was a pretty and tranquil place. 

After our visit to Mary’s house, we rode back down the hill where the driver let us off at the upper gate to Ephesus. We spent several hours wandering down through the site.  At the top was a small theater called the Odeon and the remains of what was once the water palace. There was also a large collection of columns which had been the original St. John’s basilica, from early Christian times. Before the road turned, we came to the temple of Domitius and Domitius’ palace, which once housed the largest marble statue I had ever imagined. Fragments of the statue were housed in the Selçuk Museum. 

Curetes Way

Turning the corner, we headed down Curetes Way, passing Trajan’s fountain and the Hercules gate. Further along, we passed the terraced houses, destroyed something like four times and now covered by a permanent, and unfortunately locked, covering. We then passed the impressive baths of Skolastika, the temple of Hadrian, and the humorous public toilets (men only, of course.) At the corner of Curetes Way and the Sacred (or Marble) Way, stood the famous Library of Celsus, which had become

something of an open air art gallery.  It was flanked on one side by the impressive south gate to the agora, which was a green field with lots of white column fragments and cypress trees.

Trajan's Fountain

The Public Toilets

The Library of Celsus

 

The Sacred Way

Turning the corner, we passed the brothel, which Deanna insisted was actually a temple of Aphrodite, and finally came to the large theater, which once sat 25,000 people. Ephesus was a city of over 200,000 people and its ruins were extensive, even more so because the city was moved a couple of times as the harbor silted in. 

The Theater at Ephesus

Nov. 13, 2000

Koray Motel, Pamukkale, Türkiye 

I had really been looking forward to the walk back to Selçuk from Ephesus but, as usual, Deanna insisted on taking a cab because she was hungry and refused to eat the fast food at Ephesus. The Selçuk Museum contains all of the statues and friezes found at the Ephesus site. They were unremarkable except for the gargantuan pieces of Domitian and the two well-preserved Artemises with their many breasts or eggs or bull’s testicles depending on who you asked. The museum also had a few ancient Greek marble backgammon tables and the remains of an ivory frieze that once adorned a piece of furniture. The carved ivory was very fine. There was also a bas relief of sacrificial bulls that once adorned Domitian’s altar (they worshipped the emperors as gods, back then.) The bulls were my favorites. 

After spending the entire trip looking at every gold earring in Türkiye, Deanna finally bought a pair of imitation gold reproductions of the Anatolian mother goddess. After the museum, we started to walk up to St. John’s basilica, but Deanna got hungry, so we had to abandon that idea. She wanted to eat mezes at the first restaurant on the street, but they had nothing but fish, mushrooms, and aubergine, so we compromised by having some mezes, first, at another place and then going back there so she could eat fish. The first place was fine. We each had a beer and our friend, the kitten, joined us again. The bill was 4.5 million lire. We had yogurt with spinach, tomatoes with chili, lavosh, and fried pastries with our beer. Then we went to the second place. We didn’t look at the menu but ordered from the case. We had fried mussels and calamari, one bowl of bean soup, and Deanna had a kebap. We split a small bottle of wine, which was 4 million lire. I asked about that in advance. When the bill came. It was 16 million lire. We hit the ceiling. We had been paying 2.5 million lire for calamari, etc. He charged us 4 million each for the (inedible) mussels and the calamari. Then he had the nerve to charge us for the bread we didn’t eat and add a 1.6 million lire service charge. We were both indignant. I would have paid the bill without the service charge and taken it as a lesson to always ask prices before ordering. Deanna refused to pay. She put 12 million lire on the table and stomped out, leaving our purse behind for me to retrieve. 

We went back to the hotel and spent the evening reading and wondering if the jandarma were going to come beating on our door. Selçuk saw a lot of tourists because it was the city nearest to Ephesus and we learned that they were prone to take advantage, there. 

We managed to leave Selçuk without getting arrested and took a three hour bus ride to Pamukkale. We ended up going to a motel run by the family of the guy who runs the bus agency. They were very friendly and helpful as long as you weren’t in a hurry. Unfortunately, we were. Deanna had suddenly conceived a desire to get to İstanbul a day early and she insisted that we get plane tickets from Denizli to İstanbul before we did anything else. The fact that I thought going to İstanbul on Thursday was too soon would not dissuade her from going on Wednesday and wasting two and a half hours of Monday to confirm it. The brothers who ran the motel had offered to take us to the travel agency in Denizli, which they did, but they kept us waiting until 14:00. Deanna refused to eat while we waited, even though I was already protesting that it was going to get dark before we got to the pools at Pamukkale. By the time we drove to Denizli and back, it was 15:00. 

The Path Up to Pamukkale

Upon our return, I proposed that we go to the pools while it was still light, but Deanna pulled the “fainting from hunger” routine, again. On top of everything else, the restaurant was slow. We didn’t get out of there until 16:20 and the direct light was already gone. We stomped away up the hill toward the pools. The development along the top of the pools had been removed and the Turks were trying to restore the pristine whiteness of the site. Unfortunately, this meant that one had to remove one’s shoes and walk up the often rocky slope in bare feet. Picking our way up the slope was slow, but the view was lovely. The pools are actually artificial, but they have been covered over with calcium salts and look very much like snow. The people picking their way gingerly up the path looked like penguins. There were a few shallow pools along the way but the famous ones are at the top and I wanted to get there before it was too dark to photograph the blue color of the water. 

The Cascading Pools

There are two sets of pools. The scalloped ones cascading down the face are on the left and there are some shallow reflecting pools on the right. We went to see the cascading pools first. I was concentrating on taking a photo when Deanna apparently told me she was going inside a nearby ruin. I did not hear her. When I finished taking my photo, I turned around and she was nowhere to be seen. I figured she had gone back up to the parking lot at the top with all the other people, so I picked my way back up there. She wasn’t there. At that point, I figured she was down in the ruins but, if I had limped back down there again I would not have gotten to see the other side. Not knowing for sure that she was down there and still angry about getting such a late start, having to leave early, etc, I put my shoes on and went over to see the other side. The other side was really fascinating. It didn’t look like much from below, but that was the side that once contained the hotels.

The Shallow Pools

The wide, shallow pools reflected the sunset like mirrors, interrupted by the ridges of stone between levels. On top of the ridge, only the marble floors remained where once there were big hotels. The remains were not unlike the mosaics and tile floors found in Roman and Byzantine homes. Most amazing, were the immense and elaborate empty swimming pools that once graced the hotels. These pools were quite deep (6-8’) and covered acres. They were decorated with columns and statues, bridges and walkways, all painted white, of course. It was no wonder that the water diverted to fill them drained the site and led to its degradation. They were then empty and conduits carried the mineral laden water in one side and straight out the other to cascade down the slope and, eventually, restore the pristine, white surface. 

Sunset on the Pools at Pamukkale

It was completely dark by the time I got back to the parking lot. Deanna was not there. Knowing how she hated walking in the dark, I assumed she had left without me. As it turned out, she had taken a cab but I never thought of that. I picked my way down the hill. It was easy to see where to go because the ground was white and there were brilliant flood lights illuminating the site. Unfortunately, it was hard to see when near the lights because they were blindingly bright. Just before the point where I could put my shoes back on my poor, battered feet, I was walking along the wide, concrete wall of the last pool when I slipped on some calcious mud and fell into the pool. That was not exactly how I had envisioned going swimming at Pamukkale. I dripped all the way back to the motel, nearly hypothermic and dreaming of a hot bath, to find a spitting mad Deanna in the bathtub. I supposed she was frightened that something might have happened to me, but I was cold and wet and not exactly in the mood to be yelled at when the whole mess was really no one’s fault. She insisted I pay half of her cab fare. We still weren’t speaking when I wrote this. 

Nov. 14, 2000 

Koray Motel, Pamukkale, Türkiye 

Everything seemed to be back to normal the following morning and Deanna even refrained from using my towel to soak up the water from the leaky toilet. We had breakfast at the motel and then expected to go to Aphrodisias. We were supposed ao go on the 9:30 bus but it was cancelled due to lack of interest. Then we were supposed to go at 10:30 with three other people from the motel, but they backed out. We ended up hiring a minibus for 25 million lire, which was double the cost of the bus, but less than we usually had paid to hire a driver. He took us to Aphrodisias, waited for us for two and a half hours, took us to lunch, and then brought us back. 

Tetrapylon at Aphrodisias

Aphrodisias is a pretty place where all of the public sculpture is dedicated to Aphrodite, philosophy, and poetry. They have reconstructed the tetrapylon and planted grass around it and it is an attractive site. Kenan Erim, the Turkish professor from NYU who spent twenty nine years excavating the site, is buried nearby. I was drafted to take pictures of three tourists while we were there. 

The Stadium at Aphrodisias

From the tetrapylon, we wandered over to the huge, oblong stadium that once seated 30,000. Aphrodisias might have been the city of love, but one end of the stadium still had a special enclosure for gladitorial contests and wild animal fights. 

The Ruins of the Temple of Aphrodite

The temple of Aphrodite was rearranged and expanded into a basilica by the Byzantine Christians and a palace for the bishop was erected next door. On the other side of the palace is a pleasant, little odeon, perfect for chamber concerts, which still contains most of its original marble facing. From there, we walked past the agora and several pomegranate trees to Hadrian’s baths and then on to the theater, which is built into the side of a small hill.  The hill has been determined to be artificial. Having been constructed atop the ruins of a prehistoric settlement. The theater is quite well preserved and had the only complete stage that we had seen. Behind the theater is the gymnasium and collonaded playing fields. We also went to the museum, which contains the sculptures found at the site, remarkable only for the preponderance of philosophers over victorious emperors. (Not a bad thing.) Our driver was adamant that we not eat lunch in Aphrodisias and took us to a pide restaurant where we got a very quick snack. (Pide did not qualify as a meal for Deanna.) Then our driver took us back to Pamukkale. I was out of money by this point, but there was not an ATM in all of Pamukkale. 

The Theater at Aphrodisias

We went to the Meltem Pensiyon (recommended by the Artemis Guest House folks) to have a beer and use the internet. They had Efes dark, but a very slow connection. We sat for awhile with Ebe, everyone’s grandmother, who knitted slippers all day. Deanna bought a pair, but I had the excuse of, “para yok, para ATM” (no money, no ATM.) They let me off the hook since I made my excuse in Turkish. We talked for quite awhile with an Australian girl named Kim who was working there and we got to watch the BBC news for the first time in at least a month. We left the Meltem about 19:00 and headed over to the Gürsoy Restaurant where we were the only customers. The two men working there kept us company and we conversed in an odd melange of Turish and English. By that point, we had either learned to understand simple Turkish or become telepathic. We got along OK. They were very generous and brought us fries and fruit and an extra glass of wine free of charge because we liked Türkiye and had been there so long. We left before either of them could propose and came back to the motel. Mohammed, who called himself Mel Gibson ( maybe a slight resemblance), promised to take us to the airport service bus in the morning. He was coming for us at 7:10 and the plane didn’t leave until 9:50, so we thought we’d make it.