Greek Cruise Day 8...

Day 8 – Wednesday

Got up around 7 or so, and as is usual practice by now we went to the deck to get breakfast… The breakfast menu on this cruise is great… bagels and lox, all kinds of normal breakfast stuff, and lots of unusual breakfast items that make it different enough every day to keep it interesting… Anyway, we got on the bus to Ephesus, and arrived 30 minutes later or so… I was expecting the worst, since our guide from yesterday told us that it would be blistering hot and much worse than the yesterday… but when we got out of the bus, it really wasn’t that bad, especially in the shade… The other nice thing was that the bus drove to the top of the hill, instead of us having to climb yet another hill to see the tour…

Ephesus is pretty amazing… A huge archeological dig, said to be one of the largest in the world, and most of the ruins are very well preserved… A long walk down the path that historical figures from 2000 years ago walked, looking at the same things that they looked at is fairly awe inspiring… Okay, much more than fairly awe inspiring, and I was impressed by the ruins and the tour much more than I thought that I would be… I can’t imagine how magnificent it must have been when all of the columns, statues, streets, and buildings were new, and gleamed of polished white marble… We took a tour through a section that was uncovered of 4 residences on a hill, and the mosaics on the floors and tiling on the walls were amazing… Also, interesting was the fact that they had running water in the residences, as well as a sewer system for bathrooms (at least in this level of residence…) Then to the library, and the amphitheater, which was huge and held something like 30,000 if I remember what the guide said correctly…

We walked around a bit more, took a bunch of pictures, and then got back on the bus to go back to the port… Our guide (and this was unexpected…) took us into a rug shop, in which they proceeded to show us how the silk thread was made, how the rugs were woven, all which was extremely interesting… I don’t know if it will ever do much good, but at least I know what to look for in hand woven rugs, what the counts mean, and the difference between single and double knots… After the demonstrations, they started throwing out rugs of all types, sizes and designs… Yep, it was turning into a full-on sales presentation… Should have seen that coming… We hung around after a bit, and I was actually considering getting a rug for the living room, but Ann made the right decision and bagged the idea… it was time to leave anyway and we needed to get back to the boat… although the salesmen that had been working on us were a bit miffed that we walked out… The ship was leaving at 2:30 today, and I really didn’t want to be left in Turkey without any way to get to the next stop, and it was 2 at the time… The ship had a very long cruise tonight, and wouldn’t be getting into port until around 9:30 tomorrow morning…

Ok… back to the ship, and we grabbed lunch by the pool and Ann went to the pool to swim and (as was getting usual by now…) I went to the room to relax, catch up on the previous blog entries, and watch a movie… Then took the obligatory nap and got ready for the final Cooper cocktail party of the week… Had a nice talk with Greg and Nancy at the cocktail party, and then went off to dinner at the Compass Rose restaurant… First night eating there, and I had lobster and filet, which was very nice… Then to an early bed to get ready for the final touring day in Istanbul…