Today we headed further southwest to yet another ruin, one that is so famous Phyllis did not want to pass it up: Ephesus, known in Turkish as Efes.  Yes, that is the same name as the predominant local beer and Craig is still annoyed that he fell for the suggestion “why don’t we do Efes today” thinking we were going to a beer garden.  Since we had a couple of hours drive to get there, we managed to arrive around noon when many tour groups are at lunch so it was not as crowded as expected at first.  However as the afternoon wore on, that changed.  Ephesus is very impressive but it has just a hint of artificiality to it.  Many of the ruins have been restored, using original fragments of course, but still somewhat depriving the site of that sense of desolation from the passage of time.  That Ozymandias feeling that adds such poignant melancholy to an ancient ruin.

We started at the bottom of the complex and worked our way uphill to the official city entrance.  The harbor street was closed, and just as well, as there is no real waterfront there anymore (the silting up of the harbor, plus a few earthquakes, is what did in the city in antiquity).  The amphitheater is giant, seating 25,000 people in a much more semi-circular form than the one at Pergamum (but it had a more gradual hillside to work with) and we were lucky enough to be sitting on the top row when some other visitors were trying out the remarkable acoustics of the place.  Initially they were reciting some lines from a play and we could hear them quite well from our lofty perch.  Then a young woman started singing badly to the smattering of other visitors.

Having enough of karaoke, we moved on to the Library of Celsus, which, during the 2^nd century A.D., held 12,000 scrolls.  Some of niches in which scrolls were stored remain intact, as well as some double walls, which protected the books from heat and humidity.  On the corner of the main street across from the Library was the brothel, and next to it a public lavatory in which rows of marble latrine seats still remain, including some personalized by the initials of the aristocrats who favored them.  On the way uphill we stopped to visit the Terrace Houses, which were essentially condos built into the hillside for wealthy people.  They had running hot and cold water and you can still see many beautiful frescoes on walls and floors.  And at the very top of the hill, just inside the entrance, were the public baths, which were fixtures at the entrance of every ancient city (they didn’t want dirty travelers moving around too much without cleaning up!). 

By 3:30, there were many tour groups crowding along the main marble surfaced streets of town, and fortunately we were ready to move on.  Another couple of hours driving and we were in Didim, a small town on the southwest Aegean coast that turned out to be hardly awake from the winter yet.  Granted, it was not very warm, but we were a little surprised to be the only occupants of our beachfront hotel, and this probably contributed to our general lack of enthusiasm for the place.  Many of the restaurants along the waterfront promenade were closed as well, but fortunately one, oddly named Pinocchio, was open (although we appeared to be its only customers).  We struck up quite a conversation with the seriously bored young waiter who wanted to practice his English and who indicated he was working there, many miles from his hometown, to make money and, as a happy by-product, avoid being called up for mandatory military service.  He said in two more weeks the season would arrive and things would start hopping.  This looks like it will be a true beach town when that happens.  We’re glad to be moving on before then.