Ephesus, Turkey

We decided it would be worthwhile to pay and go on one of the ship’s shore excursions for our visit to Ephesus. Our ship ported in Kusadsi, Turkey where we were greeted by a group of Turkish dancers.

The tour guide was a knowledgeable and funny guy who looked like Ben Stiller with a crazy fu manchu mustache. He gave us background information on the city and surrounding areas as rode on a charter bus to Ephesus. I’ll take you through the major points of interest that we saw during our tour of Epehsus. I had to look up this information online after our trip because I couldn’t begin to remember all of the details that our tour guide shared.

The main walkway is made of marble and referred to as the Sacred Way or Marble Way. Each day a large number of tourists visit and walk the streets of Ephesus.

One of the first sights that we encountered is Odeion, a small theatre that holds 1400 spectators. It was built around 150 AD and used as a council chamber.

These columns were a part of the Prytaneion, originally built about 3rd century BC, which functioned similar to our present day town halls.

This triangle shaped piece is a carving of Winged Nike, Goddess of Victory.

There are only a few columns left of the Temple of Domitian, which was dedicated to the Emperor Domitian.

The Gate of Heracles is located at the beginning of Curetes Street.

Curetes Street, a mosaic pattern, stretches from the Gate of Heracles to Celsus Library.

The reconstruction of the Trajan Fountain is a smaller scale of the original. The fountain was built around 102 AD and contained an enormous statue of Trajan, of which only the feet and globe remain.

The Temple of Hadrian has a carving of Medusa over the second doorway. In front of the columns are statues of the four emperors who shared the throne of the Roman Empire between 293-305.

Celsus Library is the most famous sight in Ephesus. The construction is assumed to have been completed in 117 AD.

The two story marble building has statues in niches between the doors.

The statues represent wisdom, knowledge, intelligence, and virtue.

Our tour guide told us that there was once an underground tunnel from the library to the brothel across the street, so if the men seemed to be visiting the library quite often, this may not have exactly been the case!

Theatres were built to hold approximately 10% of the town’s population. Ephesus Theatre originally held 24,000 spectators.

There were tunnels that led under the seating near the stage to bring in the gladiators who fought there.

Theatre students from a local college put on a short reenactment of dancing, gladiator fighting, and the famous Cleopatra and Mark Antony who at one time walked the streets of Ephesus.

Our tour guide pointed out a symbol that you see carved in the streets all over the city. It resembles a pizza, but is actually a symbol representing Christianity. If you take the Greek letters IXΘΥΣ, which stand for Jesus Christ, God’s son, Savior, and write them on top of each other they produces this symbol.

From our bus window we could see the prison at the top of a small mountain where the Apostle Paul is said to have been held.

Lokrum Island

After climbing down the stairs from the wall in Dubrovnik, we walked to Old Town’s pier and caught a boat ride to Lokrum Island.

The currency in Dubrovnik is the kuna with an exchange rate of about 7 to one Euro. I needed 80 kuna for the boat trip, but only had 75 left. I didn’t want to have to pay another visit to the exchange office, so I managed to talk to guy into taking what I had plus one Euro. It was a fine deal for him, but he begrudgingly accepted. Our boat ride was a short distance and only took about 10 minutes.

It was a pretty view and the water was beautiful!

We sat next to an elderly couple and were cracking up listening to them bicker.

We saw this cool ship leaving the port and the husband kept telling the wife when to snap a picture of it. She finally turned to him and said, "Why are you so fixated on that boat? Who are you, Captain Hook?"

Lokrum Island is a natural reserve with no inhabitants.

There were people swimming and sunbathing or eating at the two cafes on the island.

It was very peaceful there, mainly because it was so quiet without any noise from the city.

We took off walking around the island to explore and within the first few minutes ran across a group of wild peacocks!

Our explorations led us to a former monastery and an old church.

Then we hiked all the way up to the top of the large hill in the center of the island where an old fort is located. I had to stop and catch my breath a few times because the climb was pretty steep and it was very hot that day.

The fort was empty, but there were a few places to walk through and a staircase that led to the top of it where we were graced with a great view of Dubrovnik and the surrounding mountains.

There was one employee sitting on the very top of the fort with an umbrella just talking on the phone, probably what he does all day.

Dubrovnik, Croatia

Dubrovnik, Croatia is absolutely beautiful and the city is really unique. This was my second favorite stop of the trip. It is located on the Adriatic Sea and the city was built between the 13th and 17th centuries. The streets in Old Town are made of marble and are lined with shops, cafes, and historical spots.

Inside the main entrance is Onofrio's Fountain, which was build in the 1400s as part of an aqeduct that supplied water to the city.

There are massive walls surrounding the old town that are anywhere from 3 to 19 feet thick.

After entering Old Town through Pile Gate, there is a set of steep stairs that leads to the top of the wall.

There are only two stairways so we walked from one to the other, circling about half of the town.

The views are amazing and you can see the ocean, the city, and the mountains.

On top of the wall are canons and even a few places where it looked like prisoners could be held.

We found this little hole in the wall that was big enough for us to climb into and sit down, overlooking the small port.

It made me nervous at first because absolutely nothing is blocking you from the drop to the ground and water below. The water here is completely clear and even from our perch on the wall, we could see straight to the bottom of the sea.

We hadn’t brought our swimsuits ashore or else we would have joined in with the people jumping off these huge rocks into the water.

As we were walking along the wall, we met an older couple who took a picture for us. We talked them for a few minutes and found out that he had been a professor at IU and had run the Nashville Playhouse in Brown County for 15 years. His name is Sam Smiley and he shared with us that he acted in Hoosiers as the referee who threw Gene Hackman out of the game. He and his wife were on our cruise ship for the week.

Sailing Away from Venice

The best views that we had of Venice were from the cruise ship as we left the port.

The buildings are beautiful and it’s really quite a sight to see that most of the tall buildings appear to be quite noticeably leaning.

We went past Piazzo San Marco (St. Mark’s Square) again, where we could see the tops of the cupolas of Basilica di San Marco (St. Mark’s Basilica),

and had great views of the Palazzo Ducale (Palace of Justice).

Splendour of the Seas

The cruise ship had everything you could need or want and there were plenty of activities to keep us busy. The only time we spent in our room was when we were sleeping or getting ready. The boat had one large main formal dining room, buffet style restaurant, another “American food” restaurant, coffee shop, internet center, an indoor and outdoor pool both with hot tubs, mini golf course, rock climbing wall, fitness center, casino, theatre, library, bars, lounges, and more! One thing you will surely not do on a cruise is go hungry. We made sure to hit the gym every day to try and balance out all of the food intake. Food is available somewhere around the clock. If none of the restaurants are open, room service is available. The food was really good and there was certainly something for everyone.  This cruise had a formal seating for dinner, which meant we were assigned one of the two dining times and had a specific dinner table for the week. Our dinner time was 6:30 and we sat with 4 other young couples. If you wanted to dine in the formal dining room, dinner was a three course meal with a menu of around half a dozen selections for each course. There were casual, dressy casual, and formal nights, which we followed as best we could with the clothes that we had packed. We opted to eat in the main dining room almost every night.

Since we were celebrating our anniversary during our vacation, one night the waiters brought out a special dessert for us and gathered around the table to serenade us with a “Happy Anniversary” song.

Our table’s waiter was a man named Mejikimo from India. Each night at the end of dinner he had a riddle for us or showed us a magic or card trick. It was hilarious because he almost always messed up the card tricks and with a grin had to try a second or third time until he got it right! Steven went back the last night of our trip and taught him a simple, yet impressive card trick that he was bound to get on the first attempt. Our assistant waiter was a man named Sebastian. I can’t remember where he was from, but we just found it funny that when he served the bread to the ladies at the table he always said in his thick accent, “Lady, you want some bread?”

We enjoyed getting the chance to get to know the other couples sitting at our table, swapping stories about the day’s adventures. There were usually at least 6 at our dinner table and we had fun hanging out with the other couples, attending some of the evening shows together and playing cards in the library. Several nights we had a great time playing cards until almost 2 or 3 in the morning with Dori and Bruce, one of the couples from our table. They are from Atlanta, are both Christians and teachers. It was fun getting to know them and we had a lot in common. The last night on board, one of the other couples joined us for a few rounds of the game Spoons (or Forks in this case since that is all we find). Gary and Louise are from Scotland and had gotten married the week preceding the cruise.