Day 6 - Ephesus to Bodrum

We woke up in our tropical zoo hotel and Alex had a nice breakfast and Jon had bread.  We knew frogs were noisy (they had a frog pond), but it turns out peacocks and donkey's are surprisingly loud all night.  We both slept well, however.  

 

Here's what we've been doing while you slept.  We hired a guide for a 1/2 day tour of Ephesus, and although we're sure you're tired of Roman ruins, bear with us one more time - this will be the last. Ephesus was the capitol and largest Roman city in what will become Asia. It was a city of biblical importance.  The rumor is that both Mary and John died here.

Ancient version of Backgammon.  Alex is NOT challenging Wendy to a game. She's much too good at it.  And she dances when she wins.



 Ephesus' theatre in which they held senior leader meetings.  Nice, but not as good as some of the ones we've seen.

We're adorable.

 All the cruise lines dump here - so this experience was nothing like the ones we've had earlier in the week.  Tour groups clogged every entrance and vantage point.  It was fine - but the experience wasn't the same. We didn't want to miss this as it's arguably one of the most important sites however it wasn't our favorite.

 Kitties everywhere.

 The city streets were very well preserved and gave you a good sense of the city that was.

Each kitty gets its own column.

The library was the best part of Ephesus.  Pictures don't do it justice - it was pretty amazing.  Equally amazing is our ability to get these pictures with minimal people in them.  It really was packed.

 Kitties find nooks everywhere...even in the Celsus Library.  They were very very cute. Kim - buy more crunchies, Jon's bringing you a present.  Trust us, no-one will miss them.

 The biggest Roman theater in the world...then and now. That's Alex sitting there.

Hercules is carved into three columns here.  Check out the lion below waist level on at least two of the columns.

Yes.  Genuine.  We checked.

 

Our lunch of Lamb Shish and Flatbread is in our bellies now, so we're moving on.  We'll catch up later when we get to Bodrum.

 

 Alex's tire has been loosing 5% of it's air ever day. This morning the tire was flat.  After refilling the tire to get around this morning, we went to a mechanic later in the day and he patched it.

 

The ride to Bodrum was a great ride - lots of twists although it was mostly highway.  Even better, the view of the Aegean was around every bend.

Once we got to Bodrum, we had to find the hotel in the old town.  Not so easy.    We did some searching and eventually found it.  Note that the searching included streets like this one with tight corners barely wide enough for a car.

 

 

 Once we located the hotel, we parked in it's garden.

The Hotel Su (where we stayed).  The rooms are pretty plain (accept for the colors remain the same).

 After checking in we walked down to the harbor to check out the waterfront. There we had the idea to charter a boat for a few hours.  One failure led to a successful introduction to Captain Erdal of the Mars (a nice wooden hulled yacht).

 These pictures were taken from our 2 hour yacht cruise just outside the Bodrum Harbor.

The Island behind Jon is Kos, one of the Greek Islands.

 

 This is the Castle of St. Peter built to guard the harbor in the middle of the 15th Century.  It's a very nice Castle as far as castles go.

Jon chillin.  It  was a very relaxing couple of hours and I think we needed it.

 Ok - this one Really shows the island of Kos.  The other was a fake.

We had a really nice seafood dinner at Korfez.

Jon swears there were green bottles walking up the street but his sugar was low.

 Fall festival concert.  We're just walking along and these things happen.

Outdoor shopping streets are open until 12am.  We closed the stores down tonight.  Nite all.