A Stop in Kusadasi

Our cruise ship called, among other ports, at Kusadasi, in the Aegean Sea. From here it was possible to reach the ancient city of Ephesus, and in this case we preferred to rely on an excursion organised on board, because we're convinced that, as in Pompeii, Ostia Antica or similar fantastic archaeological sites, a tour guide is an indispensable added value... at least for us, poor ignoramuses! However, Selim, the guide we were assigned, was very knowledgeable, but he rushed us through Ephesus in a flash so he could take us to see an alleged leather clearance sale. We protested and only managed to wrangle at least half an hour more at Ephesus on our own, and afterwards we reported our guide's performance to our company, Holland America. As for the leather jackets, one person in the group took the bait and bought a jacket for 400 EUR...

which we later saw at the bazaar for half the price, and on every stall! Back to the visit: Ephesus is beautiful and the restorations that the Turks have been carrying out for years together with Austrian archaeologists are 'plausible' and don't seem to falsify the originals, unlike what we saw on the Acropolis of Athens. The Library of Celsus is incredible, and it's moving to know that it was the third library of antiquity, after those of Alexandria in Egypt and Pergamon. The great Theatre, which held up to 25,000 people, has hosted many artists in recent times, until during a Sting concert in the eighties there were collapses caused by the stereo systems being too powerful, and since then artistic events have been banned. In this theatre Saint Paul preached.

After the leather show, of which this part of Turkey is a great producer, we went to visit the House of Mary, or at least the reconstruction on the area where it seems the Virgin Mary spent the last years of her life, under the care of John the Evangelist. From here we returned to Kusadasi, where we split from the organised group to look for a little beach we could reach on foot and have a swim. The sea was lovely, but the beach, apparently replenished, was more dusty than anything else. We got sunbeds and umbrellas from very kind operators and after a couple of hours we returned to the centre of Kusadasi. The bazaar turned out to be a great disappointment. At the restaurant, where we ate an awful kebab, they tried to cheat us blatantly.

And the bazaar had nothing to do with the souks we saw in Morocco or Cairo; it was just a reseller of counterfeit clothes with nothing typical, and everything, instead, a product of globalisation. A pity.