Ephesus 1 - A Walk to the Library

Uptown Entry

Some five km from the heart of Selçuk, past the alleged home of the alleged virgin Mary, the upper entrance to Ephesus requires running a short gauntlet of souvenirs, carpets, and no few "Genuine Fake Watches" (always that same phrasing). Rather than waste our time with pictures of them, let's beam straight past them and the ticket booth (20 TL, approx. US$ 15), and the gate which looks remarkably like a BART entrance. Stick your ticket in the slot and push the turnstile. Are we there yet?

A pair of charming college-age sisters from Izmir offered to take my picture. One of them wanted a picture of me with her; prettiest young woman - or the youngest pretty one - I've posed in a one-armed hug with in decades. I took one of the two of them in front of some Genuine Real Ancient Ruin (c), and off we went. They are young, and their feet weren't swollen, so they pulled irretrievably ahead of me in short order.

'Twas a great start to a visit.

So here we are, in a world class ancient city on a partly cloudy day in the increasingly joyful spring, in a land that looks uncannily like Napa Valley without most of the hype.

Now if only the cloudy part of partly cloudy would yield to the sunny part, the world would be finely in its orbit, and all would be well.

I shared a wild wheat field with a low-profile bee, and admired somebody's tomb whose name I promptly forgot. Some fine artists definitely found employment on that grave.

Coming to the Canyon

asian teenagers photographing each other on the wide way

There is fine stuff in the Upper City: a nice intimate stone amphitheater, a "water palace", perhaps the ancestor of the Turkish bathhouse, and boatloads of columns, some still supporting plinths. (If anybody has a plinth fetish, let me know; i have lots of plinth porn, badly lighted.) But the partly clouds said no good photos of that stuff.

Mr Sun began showing his face shortly afer I crested the saddle of the hill, and passed through the gate into the Grand Boulevard, promenading its way down a sloping little valley toward Library Plaza. Plenty of modern strollers still walk this wide wonderful way, taking pictures of all the monuments, fountains, latrines (with constantly running water in ancient times!), and, not least, each other.

looking down the grand boulevard, library of celsus

Here is the Fountain of Sumbuddus Oruthus. Lots on nice intact artwork on the face and lintel. (Or is that really what a plinth is, and all my badly-lit porn is really lintels. Inquiring minds may as well learn.)

There are those partly clouds again, looming behind the fountain.

Library Plaza

Here we are at the mouth of the canyon. To the left, a lovely green hillsde with Italian cypress. Before us, the "Library and Tomb" of Iulius Celsus.

Library and tomb! Sounds like finals week... for the rest of eternity!

It's a lovely place and the sun is out. Let's hang out here in front of the library (and tomb) while we wait for part two.

It won't come tonight. In an hour and a half I'll be on a night bus to Istanbul.

G'night.