Med Cruise: Ephesus

The Ephesus tour was one of the official excursions we signed up for on the cruise. Ephesus is about a 30-minute drive from the town we docked in (Kusadasi, which is basically a resort town dependent entirely on tourism), and it was easier to go through Royal Caribbean than try to figure out how to get there on our own. The paid excursion ended up being a pretty great deal.

Royal Caribbean is amazingly efficient at breaking up these huge excursion groups. They assign everyone a number on check-in and that becomes your bus/group for the day. Groups leave almost as soon as they fill up, so everything ends up nicely staggered. The tour included some maps and brochures, a little trinket, and a bottle of water. And we had a great tour guide.

Ephesus itself was amazing. And while part of me wishes we'd had a bit more freedom to explore and read the signs on our own, our guide had a lot of good information. We got to see the library and an old public restroom (all the toilet seats carved along a u-shaped bench, so you were probably bumping knees with your neighbor). We weren't able to go up in the theater or a few other places that we saw people exploring. But we saw the major stuff, and made good time getting through the ruins.

After the ruins we bused over to a museum-type-thing. There was a gift store and a food court and a space where we watched a brief (staged) gladiator fight. The whole thing was possibly the silliest part of the entire trip. But there were bathrooms and I got some kabob, so it was all good.

Then we got to see a rug-making demonstration. They showed us how silk gets harvested from silkworms, then gathered and dyed. Then we got to see a woman working on a silk rug, the kind that takes 2-3 years to make. After that we were given refreshments (raki, which tastes like licorice and is not that different from Greek ouzo) and the sales pitch began. We saw about 100 carpets rolled out on the floor in front of us, demonstrating different materials, dyes, patterns, and techniques. Kevin and I escaped before the sales pitch began in earnest, but it was amazing to see all the different carpets. I'd love to buy one someday (and after seeing the process of making them, I'd gladly pay thousands of dollars), but we have nowhere to put one in our current house. Maybe the next one.

We spent some time wandering through the bazaar, and I bought a really cool serving bowl. But I hate how pushy all of the sales people are. As soon as you stop to look at something, they're on top of you, offering to cut the price and trying to convince you to buy from them. It made me walk away more often than not. I liked having a few minutes to make up my mind.

All in all we had a fantastic fay in Turkey. The excursion was well worth it, and I'm glad we had such a great tour guide. We probably could have stayed out longer, but between the heat and the pushy sales-people, I was eager to get back on the boat.