Kusadasi (Ephesus), Mykonos, Skepolos / Skiathos
April 26, 27, 28
Wednesday, April 26: Kusadasi (Ephesus)
Just below are two “hints” as to where we are today.
Guess where we are
Today was a bit different in several ways, but very interesting and “successful”. As in Athens, I had arranged an “independent” excursion for today, not one of the Seabourn excursions. We were docked at the port of Kusadasi, which you have probably never heard of unless you have visited there. While Kusadasi appeared to be a very pleasant little harbor and town, people do not visit here for Kusadasi, but for the nearby ruins of Ephesus, probably the most extensive remains of the Greek culture outside of Athens (and possibly including Athens). We did not realize that there were other sights to be seen also.
A Warm Welcome to Kusadasi
Since we were not in a Seabourn excursions, we left the ship by ourselves about as soon as we could. I assumed that we would meet up with our tour guide and join with other visitors from our ship and other cruise ships in port. It took a little doing, but we soon found our guide and he said that he had called our driver who would be there to pick us up in a couple of minutes. Hmmm… guide, driver, but no other people? Not what I expected. Sure enough, a car pulls up, we hop in, and away we go: just the two of us with the driver and guide. The going rate for a private car and guide through Seabourn was about $1000, and I had paid less than one-third of that. Anyway, we were off, heading to our first stop.
A ride of about 30 or 40 minutes brought us to the town of Selcuk, about two miles from Ephesus. Here, we stopped at the ruins of a church called the Basilica of St John, so called because it is believed to be the resting place of John the Apostle.
Grounds of the church
We entered the area of the ruins and walked around while our guide explained some of the history of the area which would also tie into the next stop on our tour. Before his crucifixion, Jesus told John to take care of his mother, the Virgin Mary. Some time later, when Mary moved to this area, John came also to look after her.
Yes, there were cats here.
Long after their deaths, in the 6th century, the Roman Emperor Justinian decided to build a church to honor John. Fittingly, the church was built over the place believed to be the tomb of St John. A relatively large Mosque, the İsa Bey Mosque, is adjacent to the church.
The Tomb of St John
After looking around, the driver met us with the car and we headed to our next stop: the home of the Virgin Mary. Her home was at almost the top of a good sized mountain overlooking Selcuk and the ruins of Ephesus. We pulled up into the parking lot in our little car, among multiple large tour busses. When we got out and into the line to visit the house/shrine, I was afraid that we might be there a long time.
Long line of people to see Mary’s house
But, our guide was good. He looked over the many people in front of us in the line and identified another tour guide he knew, quite a bit further ahead in the line. He did some hand signals with that guide and after her response, he told us to follow him as we skipped around probably 100 people in line. Once there, he repeated that process and we skipped around another 30 or so people. That got us close enough so we waited in line about 10 minutes before entering the house.
About to enter the Virgin Mary’s home. (no photos inside)
We filed through the small house, which had been reconstructed several times, if it really was Mary’s home, and started looking for our guide. (He did not go through the house, possibly because he is Muslim.) It was drizzling lightly, just enough to get wet if you didn’t find shelter.
Yes, there were cats here.
We finally met up, found the car and driver, and headed back down the mountain to Ephesus. At the entry point to Ephesus, I looked around and thought “what’s the big deal here?”
Entrance to the Ephesus complex
Then we turned a corner or two, and started down the main road down the hill. There were statues, columns, walls, and temples on both sides of the road. There was a decent sized Greek theater on one side.
The small Theater (and cat)
As we walked down the road, our guide pointed out one significant artifact after another: no way I could remember much of it all. One significant structure was the Temple of Hadrian, the Roman Emperor, which was built in the 4th century AD. There were multiple temples, statues of gods and goddesses, fountains, baths, and even ancient bathrooms.
Looking down the main road toward the Library
Unlike some of the Roman ruins we have seen, Ephesus was a holy site and only the priests and other holy people (and political rulers, of course) could enter this part of the city. Common people were not allowed in. As we continued down the central road, we were getting close to the building called “the Library”.
Lower end of the road and the Library
Ephesus was originally settled well before 1000 BC but suffered several attacks that destroyed much of the city each time. It was at its peak during the Greek classical period, around 500 – 300 BC with the Romans taking control in 129 BC and actually enlarging and enhancing the city. The city was mostly destroyed by the invading Goths in 263 AD but was once again largely rebuilt by the Romans. Between an earthquake in 614 and the silting over of its harbor, the city lost its importance and vitality. The current state of the buildings and the extent of the ruins reminded me of Pompii.
Library of Celsus, now mostly a façade
The library is currently the largest free-standing structure in Ephesus although that is probably because it was largely rebuilt from fragments in 1970 – 1978. Although it is said that the library once held 12,000 scrolls, the front of the structure (both now and as originally built) is primarily a façade, with relatively little behind it. Some people claim that, in the city’s declining years, the library was used for some much less educational purposes, although I did not hear of just why that is believed.
Walkway from Library to Grand Theater
From the Theater area, we walked down what was once a very grand sidewalk leading to the Grand Theater. This open-air theater is believed to have accommodated 24,000 people and is thought to be the largest such theater in the ancient world. Although the Greeks used it mainly for drama productions, the Romans did hold gladiatorial combats in the facility.
Looking back at the Grand Theater from the Harbor Road
In the classical Greek period, the Aegean sea came within a kilometer of Ephesus and there was a large road leading from the Grand Theater to the harbor, thus the name “Harbor Road”. During the first couple of centuries AD, due to both natural and man-made problems, the bay filled with silt and became unusable for shipping, The Aegean shoreline is now about 5 kilometers away.
We passed through a commercial building with snack bars and souvenir shops and met up with our driver at this entrance to Ephesus. We headed back to the town where we had visited the Basilica of St John and went into the Ephesus Museum there. Much of the contents would not have meant very much without the good explanations of our guide. For example, the statue pictured below:
Diana, Goddess of Fertility
Over the ancient years, there were several Goddesses of Fertility with the most frequently named one being Demeter. But, during the days of Ephesus, the Goddess of Fertility was named Diana (or Artemis to some ancient Greeks) and was pictured as having 25 breasts, the better to nurse all the infants. We toured the museum for about 30 minutes before getting back into the car and heading toward Kusadasi. But, we had one more stop to make.
Our guide explained that we were going to stop at an educational facility where they teach people (almost exclusively women) how to make Turkish rugs by hand. First, we were led to a dining area where we were served a very nice lunch of local Turkish dishes, all of which were very good. (Why couldn’t we get some of this on the ship??) Next, we went into a room where several women were at looms, threading and knotting the handmade rugs. We got a good explanation of the various materials used for rugs: cotton, wool, and even silk (amazingly smooth and beautiful rugs). I did not realize that to make true Turkish rugs, the weaver actually ties a tight knot of thread at every intersection of of the long horizontal and vertical threads. We also got a short description and even demonstration of how they grow silkworms, harvest the fine cocoon material, and then spin it onto usable silk thread.
The lead guy then offered to show us some of the finished product rugs in another room. By now I had figured out where this was going but decided to see it through. We were led into a room with rugs stacked up all over.
The Turkish Rug room
We were told that there were several rooms like this if we’d like to see them. Then they started unrolling the rugs out onto the floor to show the colors and patterns and, of course, started the sales pitch. Normally I probably would have said “thanks, but no place to put a new rug and not interested”, but I realized that this might actually work out OK. We were in the process of adding a new sun room onto our house and a proper Turkish rug would go well in that new room. To make the story a little shorter, we did end up “investing” in a Turkish rug and, as I write this, it arrived here at our home a couple of days ago.
Our new rug
It was a short ride back to the Kusadasi port where I gave our guide and driver a good tip for the very good tour. I suspect they also got a nice commission from the rug company.
Back on the ship, this evening was planned for something special. We were scheduled to go ashore and bus back to the Ephesus remains for a classical music concert by a local orchestra in the Ephesus Grand Theater. In the photos above you may have noticed that it was raining some during the day, and it did not let up much, so everything, including the seats we were to sit on, would be rather wet. The ship’s staff (and probably the orchestra) made the proper call to cancel the event and the crew started scrambling for replacement activities. Aimee (Cruise Director) soon announced that Ben Mills had agreed to do a very unplanned and impromptu show in the main lounge as a replacement for the concert in Ephesus. Considering the surprise nature of the show, he did an excellent job, playing and singing songs and even taking requests from the audience. After a couple of songs with Mills completely solo, singing and playing guitar, the keyboard player from the ship’s band joined him. Completely unrehearsed and unplanned, they played and sang a number of songs and provided a completely amazing impromptu performance. As an example, here is a part of the Rod Stewart song, “Sailing”. You might notice some influence from his friend, Rod Stewart.
From there it was time for dinner in the main restaurant and, after a glass of cognac in the Observation lounge, we made our way to “The Club” where the band was to be playing some dance music. For those who might not know it, Susan likes to dance and I have the proverbial “two left feet”. She can dance any of several different types of dance (ballroom, clogging, rock, etc.) and can usually find a partner on the dance floor. This night she ended up dancing with the ship’s male dancer: she had a bit of a reputation, a good reputation, the rest of the cruise.
Thursday, April 27: Mykonos, Greece
This day dawned with the wind blowing pretty good, probably 20 mph, and the threat of occasional rain showers. For some reason, there were very few excursions available for Mykonos and we had not signed up for any. We planned to just head into town and take a walk around and see what we could find. We were at anchor a little outside the harbor and the water was somewhat rough. Rather than using the Encore’s tenders, we were riding water taxi boats from the island and moving between the Encore and the water taxies was a little tricky with the rough water. It took a little while for the crew to decide just how they were going to handle loading and unloading the water taxies so we had to wait a little while to head ashore, but we ended up being some of the first passengers to get to Mykonos.
You can see the rough water, even well inside the harbor.
We looked around the shopping area close to the harbor for a while: the streets looked just like I imagined the streets on Mykonos should look.
Street in the shopping area, close to harbor
Since we were rather early yet, very few of the shops were open and the streets were very quiet. There were some coffee shops open and at least one very colorful fruit and vegetable market.
Fruit & Vegetable markets always make colorful subjects.
We joined up with some other passengers who said they were going to look for “Little Venice” and the Mykonos Windmills. I had no idea what Little Venice was and had not heard of the windmills. I was about to be educated. The walkway went through one area of old ruins, some of which were being renovated or repaired, and I thought perhaps this was Little Venice.
ruins of something
When I got close to the shoreline at one point, I did find out what the windmills were about.
First view of the Mykonos Windmills
So now we knew that we were heading in the right direction. We continued on, climbing a small hill, and we were at the base of the windmills.
Close up to the windmills
Looking back toward where we had just come from, we finally found “Little Venice”. The street that we had been walking along had shops that backed up to the shoreline and, in some cases, extended out over the water. Some of them were painted in bright colors and the combination did resemble buildings along the Venice canals.
The real Little Venice
We wandered around the area a bit and then took a rather circuitous route back the harbor area.
Yes, there were cats here.
The wind was still blowing and there was a threat of rain, so we headed back to the ship to spend the day reading and relaxing. Susan did go to the gym, but was not impressed and did not stay long.
Good-bye, Mykonos (can you find the windmills?)
The dinner in The Restaurant was a “special” fixed menu meal that was nice, but, as with most of the other meals, the chef appears to be afraid to use many spices. I am getting a little better at determining what wines they have available, although without much help from the sommelier. Dinner lasted a little longer this evening, so by the time we have our usual cognac in the Observation Lounge and get to the entertainment in the main lounge, it is already under way. Tonight, we have a concert pianist (backed up by some of the ship’s band), who is taking us around the world by playing music from different countries. They played two or three songs from each country we visited. He ended the show with the United States and you can check this video to get an idea of how it worked.
Friday, April 28: Skepolos then Skiathos
Are you following us?
Today will be a bit of a day of comparisons. We are scheduled to be in the small island of Skepolos and we are supposed to be joining a tour with a wine tasting of Greek wines. As Susan and I surveyed the ocean from our balcony, it did not look promising.
The view from our balcony: those waves do not look friendly.
The wind was blowing at least 20 – 25 mph and the wind direction was such that it was blowing from the sea into the harbor of Skepolos. In this video, you can see the waves rolling past the Encore and on toward the harbor. We saw one of the tenders in the water and it was rolling and pitching around a lot: it would not be a comfortable ride in to the harbor and getting into the tender from the Encore could be dangerous. I suspected there would be a change of plans and just hoped that we would not have an unplanned “sea day”.
About 9:30, the captain announced that we were abandoning Skepolos and heading to the small island of Skiathos, about 25 miles away so we would arrive there about noon. We relaxed for a while then had a fairly early lunch as we arrived just outside the harbor of Skiathos, where the wind and water conditions were much better.
The waves look much smaller and wind is offshore.
The wind was still blowing strong here, of course, but the harbor faces the other direction, so the island provided protection from the wind and waves, and it was relatively calm here. Check this video and compare it to the one at Skepolos and you will see a major difference.
There was not time to arrange any organized excursions here, so we were on our own and hopped on one of the first tenders to head ashore. Skiathos turned out to be a very pretty little community. About every place we visited on this trip was clean and well maintained, but Skiathos just seemed even more so: it was spotless.
The harbor for small boats and its waterfront
The waterfront was lined with cafes and small shops and there were not many people around: completely uncrowded, although that would change in a while. If you look at the video and first photo of Skiathos, there is a small island to the right side of the harbor. This island is connected to the main island by a dock and walkway and it made for a very nice stroll. We walked around the island, which houses a hotel and restaurant, and then down to the other harbor which is for large ships.
This is the other waterfront, with similar cafes and shops.
We walked the length of the large ship harbor and waterfront and looked for something for a little exercise. If you look at the photo just above, you will see a hill in the background and at the top of the hill is a small bell-tower. We had heard some comment about being able to walk to the bell-tower, so we headed that direction without any kind of map or directions. We did pretty good navigating the narrow twisting streets and made our way up the hill, and guess who we met along the way.
Yes, there were cats here.
At the base of the bell-tower was a small plaza in front of a small church, and the view was very nice. We looked around for a while and I played photographer for a group of people enjoying the view and one of them returned the favor.
Our “yes, we really did get to Skiathos” photo
The view was nice and the wind was refreshing, but it was time to head down. This time we knew better where we were going and got down the hill quickly. As we were up on the hilltop, we noticed a large ferry coming into the “large ship” harbor. It docked and stared disgorging lots of people and vehicles as we walked by: suddenly, the waterfront was much busier. We walked the length of the waterfront to the other end of the small boat harbor and looked back at a rather pretty sight.
From the other end of the harbor: several significant items in photo.
In the photo above, you can see the orange tender in the middle of the scene, with the bell-tower on top of the hill just above the tender. Then, on the right edge of the photo, you can see the large ferry docked at the large ship harbor. We ambled around a little longer, then got on the tender and headed back to the Encore. After all, we have a busy evening tonight.
This evening we had signed up for a special wine dinner with some very good wines, as a look at the menu would suggest.
The wines were top notch: any time a Dom Perignon Champagne leads the list, you know it is going to be good. The wine list also included a Penfolds Chardonney and a Opus One (2018) (Cab dominate Bordeaux blend) and several other very good bottles.
The food was very good also, but the wines tended to overshadow the food.
I was somewhat surprised at how few people participated in the wine dinner. I believe we had 10 people at our table and there may have been one other, smaller, table.
Our table at the wine dinner.
I don’t think we bothered with our normal cognac this evening, after that extensive wine dinner. We did head to the main lounge for the evening’s entertainment, a “song and dance” show of the Encore band, the four vocalists and the two dancers.
The four singers
One evening we happened to talk to Tiffany, the young woman on the left, and she spent a number oif years as a child in Smryna, GA, just down the road from us. Every time I saw Steven (on the very right) he reminded me of Eddie Murphy, but I am pretty sure that Eddie Murphy cannot sing nearly as well as Steven. Click on this link to see the ending of the “Superstition” number that the performers started in the chapter about the Encore.
End of Chapter 2:
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