DashB is leaving us today as they are making a diversion to Istanbul to visit their daughter who has just moved there, so they head off after breakfast and we will meet them on the 4th July at the Bulgarian border.
Today we have a 300km drive to Selcuk starting with a lovely drive through small villages to Aphrodisias, which is an ancient site dating back to 5,000 BC.
The memorial gates to Aphrodite are currently undergoing restoration and are situated in the middle of a green field which makes them look very imposing.
The oval stadium is enormous and they used it for chariot races. Later one end was blocked off and the smaller circle was used for gladiator fighting.
The temple to Aphrodites would have been magnificent in it’s day.
The Bouleuterion where the city councillors would meet to debate the administration of the city is in very good condition.
The baths with their statues around the outside and mosaic tiled floor had different temperature water in each room, which was heated by an underfloor heating system.
The enormous main Agora and pool is under restoration at the moment with dozens of workers digging and moving dirt by the wheel barrow load.
The Acropolis and Theatre is quite large.
The Sebasteion with its wide colonnade and magnificent statues on 3 levels is most impressive. The statues have been removed and placed in the onsite museum for protection.
The museum collection of statues is fantastic.
The drive to Selcuk is very hot as it’s about 42 degrees today. When we arrive at our beautiful boutique hotel we don’t waste any time to go into the air conditioning and have a beer. The hotel owners are very welcoming and we’re soon in the lovely cool swimming pool re-hydrating ourselves from today’s drive.
Four of us girls go into town at 6:30 to browse through the shops in a couple of the lovely lanes before meeting the men for dinner. We sit in a restaurant looking up at the old aqueducts that supplied Ephesus with water. Now they make a great spot for the storks to build their nests. The young storks haven’t flown from the nests yet and we watch the adult storks flying in to feed them.
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