Ephesus Day 5

Day 5 of our trip found us traveling from Istanbul to Izmir and then on to Selcuk/Ephesus where we'll be visiting an archeological site of ancient Roman ruins that rivals Pompeii. Our plane-to-train travel went like clockwork but, save for a chance occurrence, it could have been disastrous.

When I initially booked our flight from Istanbul to Izmir, I was trying to find the lowest possible fare, not realizing that Istanbul has two airports. Yesterday, when I arranged the shuttle from our hotel to the airport I assumed we were flying out of Ataturk Airport, the airport we had flown into. It was only when I was working with the desk clerk trying to print our boarding passes that he noticed we were flying out of Sabiha Gokcen Airport, which is twice as far from the town center as Ataturk and three times the shuttle fare (I think what I saved in flight costs I spent on the shuttle). Oh well, live and learn!

We arrived in Selcuk/Ephesus before 10:00 AM, checked into our room and then spent an hour or so at the Ephesus archealogical museum. We're staying in a small, family run hotel and the owner had someone drive us to the nearby town of Sirince for lunch and bazaar shopping. While wandering through the bazaar, I had seen women squatting on the ground making these filled crepe-like pancakes on a small outdoor grill and decided to give them a try. I ordered the spinach and cheese version (the dish was called Golzeme) and it was fantastic...probably the best lunch I've had since we're been here. Rich's menu choices haven't been as good and consequently, he's not a huge fan of Turkish food (personally, I think he needs to stop ordering the meat dishes and give the vegetarian ones a try).

The weather here is much hotter than Istanbul (@ 95 degrees today) and when Rich and I got back from Sirince we just wanted to get out of the sun for awhile. Later in the afternoon we walked down the road to the ruins of St. John's Basilica and then walked over to our sister hotel for another outdoor terrace dinner. Tomorrow we'll be meeting our tour guide at 8:30 AM for a 3-4 hour tour of the Ephesus ruins...let's hope we finish our tour before it gets as stifling hot as it was today!