Today was the big day! Ephesus! Everything up until now has just been training for this day! I was extremely worried about the heat but it actually wasn’t too bad. Rhodes is still my over-the-top heat day! We disembarked around 8:15 and sauntered into Kusadasi. Definitely one of the most accessible and easy ports!
The next part wasn’t so easy – finding a taxi to take us to Ephesus! Or rather finding a taxi that was willing to take us for a reasonable amount of money! The first character offered us the low low price of 140 euros! My research said to expect 55 euros! There were another couple of 100 + euros when we crossed paths with Ali.
Ali opened the discussion with 80 euros and even though it was still more that we needed to pay probably, we all really liked him and decided that we could live with paying 20 euros each to get to Ephesus! It turned out that he was such a dear! He was showing us pictures of his kids and was just really friendly. He gave Carlos his mobile number and when we were ready to be picked up, he would come. So no needing to worry about fitting in to a specific time frame. He has a website: www.kusadasicab.com. We’ll definitely give him a buzz next time we pass through!
We had bought our tickets online at the official museum site for Turkey. I’ll update with the website when I’m home. It worked really well. You just buy, print, and bring! And skip the line! We have them for the Aya Sophia as well in Istanbul. There are no processing fees or anything so you just pay what you would at the gate. It was 25 TL for the general admission and then an additional 15 TL for the Terrace Houses.
The place was positively crawling with people. We were sharing cruise traffic with the RCI Navigator of the Seas which was twice the size of the Noordam! However, it amazingly didn’t detract from the experience. Of course we wouldn’t say no to a private 23 minutes (or more!) like at the Acropolis!
Ephesus is just amazing. There is very little that I can say that would do it justice. We were all blown away. I was even blown away and I’ve been here before!! Albeit 16 years ago! What really was the icing on the cake was the Terrace Houses. We heard a lot of people commenting yesterday about how they were disappointed with Knossis in Crete. I would fall under that umbrella too. This contributed to some hesitation over the Terrace Houses since I just couldn’t believe that they could be that awesome (Knossis Syndrome). Well, I can safely say they were AMAZING! We loved them! Didn’t want it to end! The closest thing I can compare them to would be Pompeii but the setting is completely different. It is just so hard to imagine that 50 years ago they were underground. Wow.
And continuing with the wows, really the Library of Celsus is a sight to behold. The Austrian’s had a big hand in restoring much of the Ephesus sites and they really did a good job!
The last big sight at Ephesus (if travelling from the high gate to the low gate as we did) is the Great Theatre. We climbed all the way to the top to take in the views and bid farewell to Ephesus. I’m sure we’ll be back again someday on a dedicated Turkish trip.
We found Ali without any difficulty and he whisked us back to the ship for our lunch. In the end we spent 3 hours exactly at Ephesus. We would struggle to do it any faster!
We boarded the Noordam with full intentions to returned to shore for a look around Kusadasi. We should have known better!!!! Once again we hit the Mexican buffet at the midship pool – after a quick swim to cool down of course! After lunch we all branched off to partake in our activities of choice, whether it was sun lounging, siesta-ing, prepping blog photos….you can probably guess who chose which activity! The Royal Caribbean set sail around 5 pm so it was fun to watch her go. Eventually we all reconvened at the aft pool for a dip and to watch our sail away. It was quite cool since we reversed all the way out and then pivoted around to head towards Mykonos. That ship can turn on a dime!
We were still soooo full from lunch so I had two courses of soup and then veal cheeks with polenta. The chilled mango soup was delish! We did some planning for the morning and then at 11 pm it was time for the Filipino Crew Show in the Vista Lounge. Some members of the crew performed regional dances and songs from The Philippines. It was so fabulous! They all are amazing!