The
pace of this tour is beginning to tell on most of the passengers, who have been
taken by surprise by the early starts and long journeys. Our Anzac Day sleep
deprivation is a major factor, of course. The thing is, though, that Turkey is
so big, and its history and culture so rich, that there is just so much to see.
And today we had variety.
We
started with religion, visiting the Virgin Mary’s house up on a hill above
Ephesus: a little two-roomed shrine, mostly reconstructed, with a holy spring
and a Wishing Wall covered in multi-lingual begging prayers, most of them
written, quite bizarrely, on toilet paper. One person had come prepared,
though, with a laminated printed card. Another had used a hair ribbon and, not wanting to waste its length, requested all good things for family,
friends, career, health, love, life… Thorough.
Then
we were back in ancient history, exploring the city of Ephesus with the usual
elements of processional avenue, tumbled columns, reconstructed archways,
tiered theatre, and treacherously smooth and cracked marble flagstones once
trodden on by Mark Anthony, Cleopatra, St Paul, St John, and now me. The
differences this time were the latrines, a sociable arrangement of holes above
a running stream, the holes perhaps a little too snugly spaced for modern sensibilities;
and the library, now reduced to a magnificent façade of arches and pillars
shading icy marble slabs. There were also, of course, cats and poppies, and
this time dogs as well.
For
a bit of a break from history and architecture, we visited one of the area’s
many leather outlets, Emelda. They specialise in lamb leather here: very fine
and smooth, not waterproof but beautiful, and made into super-stylish jackets
that were very desirable but, even with all the various discounts applied,
still around $1000 each. But some people bought them.
Then,
passing distant snow-capped mountains, we went to Pamukkale, to see what we
Kiwis recognised as White Terraces. Shame we lost ours to the Tarawera
eruption: amazing! So brilliant white that we were glad not to be arriving at
midday – even at 5pm they were dazzling. Stepped terraces of corrugated pools
of aqua water (tepid, not warm) are hung with stalactites; we paddled through
under the stern eye of the whistle-police, keeping us to our area. In a fairly
familiar story, much of the calcium-rich springs are now diverted to hotels, but
there’s still enough to keep tourists happy.
We
finished the day arriving at the Thermal Hotel Pam at 7pm, having started it
overlooking the Aegean at 6.15am. This holiday will take some recovering from…
No comments:
Post a Comment