walking through ephesus begun the day in an attempt to escape the heat - it most definitely didn't work! the ancient capital of turkey was absolutely incredible! ephesus was home to an estimated 200,000 people and had an amphitheatre that could seat 25,000!! the ruins were pretty spectacular, especially the library and the roman victory fountain. mehmet made sure to show me 'special' things all the way through.
from ephesus we went to lunch (where i ate an awesome selection of salads, you would have been seriously jealous mum!) and then were treated to an absolutely hilarious experience at a leather shop. pulling up in our bus we knew we were in for a tourist trap, but were totally unprepared for the fashion show of the most hideous leather jackets you have ever seen, accompanied by loud top 40 hits. we were then given half an hour to roam the two storey behemoth of a shop - during which we proceeded to model many of the revolting jackets. on a side note, the sleazy tour guide informed me that i could get a jacket for 10% price because he liked me... i not so politely declined.
we climbed back aboard our tour bus and went to the house of the virgin mary. the boys and i had a wonderful time marvelling at the hideous and ridiculously expensive memorabilia, but the religious significance of the event was lost on us unfortunately! highlight of seeing meryana evi was definitely getting ice cream at the end!
from there we made a brief stop at the temple of artemis, one of the ancient wonders of the world. sadly only one pillar remains of the biggest ancient greek temple as the rest is at the british museum. once again mehmet the tour guide was a delight, asking about my virginity since artemis was the goddess of virgins!
our last stop of the day was another tourist trap - this time a carpet gallery. thankfully it was quite fascinating, as we were showed the process of spinning silk and then watched ladies make various types of carpets, some of which take over 18 months to make!!! quite a few people made purchases, but i refrained from spending a ridiculous amount of money on one of the beautiful carpets.
currently eating dinner by myself, quite contentedly i must add, and you'll be happy to know that i'm trying more local dishes mum!
... needed to add a note that we had mehmet as our tour guide again for pamukkale today. thankfully we were virtually allowed to roam by ourselves the majority of the day!
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