19 Izmir, Selcuk, Ephes and Pamukkale
Though very busy with school lately, it doesn't stop us from traveling :) Last weekend we went to Izmir and from Izmir to Selcuk, from Selcuk to the famous ruins of Ephes(us) (one of the worlds famous classical sites) and after it to Pamukkale where we took a fresh dive in to the Aegean sea.
Ephesus used to be a Roman city and it's theater dates back from around 700 BC. It took 70 years and 75000 slave labours to build it. It holds in total 24000 people. Till this day the acoustics are still great. Denes, our famous Hungarian singer and his girlfriend Aga proofed it bye singing a song together.
Ephesus was a powerful and city of great influence. Offcourse the great theater was the big atraction for wealthy Romans. Thousands gathered to watch plays and to watch gladiators fighting.
Another big attraction is the old library which used to contain 10.000 books in Roman times. You can also see in Ephesus how the upper class of them used to live in the 'terraced houses'. It costs ten Lihra extra (allthough we went in for free, including the entrance fee for the city itself) but it's deffinitly worth it! You can even still the ancient floorheating system which was also used as the cooling system in the summer.
In Izmir we went to Kadifekale. From here you have a great view over the city and its harbour. On the top of 'mt pagus' here, some ruins remain of old Smyrna on Kadifele (mt Pagus), which was founded by Alexander the Great. Within the walls that remain migrant women from Mardin (a city in the far south east) are hard at work making on horizontal carpet looms..Apperantly this is an increasing rare sight (see photo 5 and 6).
The added photos in the blog are:
Photo 1: Izmir, Kadifekale
Photo 2: Izmir, Kadifekale
Photo 3: Izmir, Kadifekale
Photo 4: Izmir, Kadifekale
Photo 5: Izmir, Kadifekale
Photo 6: Izmir, Kadifekale
Photo 7: Ephesus, Aga with library background
Photo 8: Ephesus, Denes on a Romanian toilet
Photo 9: Ephesus, old library
Photo 10: Ephesus
Photo 11: Ephesus
Photo 12: Ephesus
Photo 13: Selcuk, Denes & Aga, St. John's view point
Photo 14: Pamukkale
Photo 15: Pamukkale
Photo 16: Pamukkale
Photo 17: Selcuk
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