Ephesus

Ephesus is all it’s cracked up to be. The best preserved Roman city in Asia Minor, and with the tourists to prove it. Thousands of them, apparently they all decided to arrive on some massive cruise ship and all wanted to go to Ephesus the same day as us. Still it hardly detracted from the monumental scale of the whole site. The tour groups went through in about an hour, and we took about 5. Best parts are the newly opened and restored terrace houses, complete with stunning frescoes and mosaics, and working archaeologists attempting to piece together the wall coverings of entire rooms – talk about a jigsaw puzzle and a half!!! And without most of the tour groups, thankfully. The stadium and library are the big ones, and deserve to be, but Ben reckons the most interesting were the Roman loos, water pipes and sewage system. On the way out we went down some deserted track and came across an overgrown roadway, the oldest in the site at 600 BC. Complete with original columns, remnants of shops and paved in marble and extending for more than 500 m. Weird – sums up most of Turkey actually


The Theatre from a long way away



Archaeologists working on an enormous jigsaw puzzle


Frescoes and mosaics in one of the old houses.



Mosaic of in the hall of one of the houses




The Old Library





The oldest steet at Ephesus, and with NO tourists



Domitian Street, where the taverns (Pubs) were


Curetes Street which runs between the Library and admin centre


An ancient backgammon board now used as a paving stone in a pathway


Mosaics down the side of one of the buildings on Theartre Street.


The Roman loos!