Day 1 of Turkey Vacation: Selcuk on August 19th, 2016
Although it says this post is for the first day in Turkey about Selcuk, but this post should start following flight PC4122 at Izmir Airport.
The images in this post are hosted on Imgur. Email me should there be any display problems.
Arriving in Selcuk
It's safe to say that railway transport in Turkey didn't exist, except for the Izmir-Selcuk-Denizli route. We planned the time of our final flight of the day into Izmir so that we could safely catch train 32261, last of the day, to Selcuk.
Izmir Airport Train Station is primarily served by local train services that, if I was correct, went as far as Cumaovası, which was how most local residents of Izmir get to/from airport. We waited for quite anxiously (mostly because it's the last train of the day) for some time, as our train was delayed for a couple of minutes behind a local train.
Upon boarding the train, we were a little bit frustrated to find all the seats been occupied, so we stood all the way to Selcuk. Although it's only an hour, it's not the most comfortable way to end the day after three segments of flight. The good thing was, at 5TL, the train ticket was fairly cheap.
It seemed that there were Turkish Air Forces based in Izmir airport, which meant that the airport should be well-guarded.
We booked our hotel near İsa Bey Mosque, which meant after getting off the train we'd got to pull our bags all the way across the little town of Selcuk, with hilly streets paved with tiles. I shall admit, tiles did make a town appear historic, but they were also a nightmare to trolley bags.
(And near the end of this post one should see how terrible the train station of Selcuk was during our visit, which added fence-scaling to our little journey to hotel.)
Except for the chili, I'm quite fond of this food. Yet my father couldn't stop complaining about the stranggeness, if not awfulness of the rice.
Having put down our bags at our hotel room (and not having eaten anything for 9 hours), we finished our dinner at a nearby restaurant. I didn't know whether this had anything to do with the decrease of tourists to Turkey, but the local mosquitos seemed they also hadn't eaten anything for hours, and the outdoor restaurant with lighting and three adult humans turned out to be a carnival for them.
Before dinner, our hotel manager was eager to show us the major attractions around Selcuk from his hotel rooftop, and lent us a traveler's guidebook about Selcuk and Ephesus.
Then it's officially August 19th, the first day of our vacation in Turkey.
It seemed that the Turks were crazy about this tea, not me though.
The hotel manager helped called us a taxi and took us to the South-East visitor entrance of the ruins of Ephesus, at standard market price of 20TL per cab covering 3.75KM.
Ephesus Ruins
At the entrance to the ruins of Ephesus, we purchased the Turkish Museum Pass at 185TL per person, which turned out to be quite powerful in the days that followed.
And of course, I covered myself with sun creams, which didn't turn out as useful as the museum pass.
This lovely kitty resting on rocks gave us a prelude for the many homeless cats that roamed this nation. But rarely were dogs seen.
The good thing about entering through the South-East entrance was that, we could walk down Curetes Street. Everybody prefers to walk downhill.
Terrace House
Then there's this Terrace House which was essentially an archeological site with a roof on its top (only site with roof in Ephesus). It should require a separate ticket, but was covered by the Museum Pass.
Where we could witness archeologists piecing together the broken tiles.
Terrace House Interior
Rooms in Terrace House with Mosaic Floors
With distinctive piles of tiles supporting the bath floor.
Library of Celsus
Theater
It's damaged enought that it's off limits.
Leading to the harbor.
Most people took the North-West exit here, but I saw a sign that read there's a trail leading to the Church of Mary that was close by (not the other one on the mountain aforementioned). So, why not pay it a visit?
Church of Mary
Then we exited the Ephesus site by its North-West exit. After that, there're some cabs waiting offering standard market price of 20TL per cab back to Selcuk. We, however, decided to make our way back on foot, which turned out to be a mistake.
The good thing about walking back was that, we got to view the ruins on the outskirts of Ephesus, like its old stadium, over a fence though. And unlike the South-East exit, the D515 route from Selcuk to Ephesus North-West exit had bicycle and pedestrian lanes covered with trees, which was quite useful in the scorching sun. Also, we got the chance to stop by (the ruins of) Artemis Tapınağı, which was 500 meters West of Selcuk downtown. But from the exit back to downtown it was a 3 KM hike, with few Pokemons to catch.
Stadium of Ephesus was outside ticketed area, walled off, and off limits.
Artemis Tapınağı
Artemis Tapınağı was once a temple grander than the Parthenon of Athens, now stands in sole column.
After that, we finished lunch in a local restaurant near the Museum of Selcuk.
I sort of liked this form of Pizza as one can eat it elegantly piece by piece and it's easily pre-cut. I didn't know, but my father didn't seem to buy into this.
Ephesus Archaeological Museum
Since Ephesus Archaeological Museum was covered by the Museum Pass, it became our next stop.
Between 1 Century BC and 4 Century BC.
Quite funny facial expressions.
Then we headed North, visiting Basilica Of Saint John before picking our bags at the hotel and heading for the train station to Denizli.
Ayasuluk Kalesi and Basilica of Saint John
Ayasuluk Kalesi and Basilica of Saint John was next to each other, and their tickets were sold together. Turkish Museum Pass gets you into both of these places.
With a bird flying by.
It's believed that John wrote his Gospel in this unassuming room.
It's believed that John wrote his Gospel in this unassuming room.
It's believed that John wrote his Gospel in this unassuming room.
İsa Bey Mosque
Since we still got time left before the first afternoon train, we visited İsa Bey Mosque. And given we weren't properly dressed to the hypercritical Islamic standards, we only hung out in the gardens of the Mosque. I shall say, it's marvelous to see the original stones of the Mosque still standing after more than six centuries, albeit the Mosque was being more functional than impressive.
Where we had dinner yesterday.
Having visited Basilica Of Saint John and İsa Bey Mosque, we picked up our bags at the hotel, and walked back to the Selcuk Train Station.
I guess this is the remains of Aqueduct.
Train to Denizli
This was a station under renovation (strange thing is that I didn't see any workers), which made it a giant construction site. I saw they were building elevated platforms with underground passage. But since that underground passage was not finished yet, the only way in and out for passengers was walking on rail tracks.
Since Selcuk Train Station was undergoing renovations, its normal exits to the west were all blocked. We were left with the choices of either scaling over a half-meter fence, or taking a 500 meter detour while walking on gravels. With our bags, of course we chose the former. I had to say this was very inconsiderate of the construction part.
Due to the renovation, it's not in use. There's a temporary ticket booth across the tracks.
I didn't know the existence of youth tickets for Turkish trains (I deemed the train tickets already cheap compared to buses), but the kind salesman in the ticket booth kindly offered me a youth discount from 16.5TL to 13TL for the ticket to Denizli.
Last night's experience of standing on the train for an hour was still vivid at this time, so thank God we found seats on this train to Denizli.
At this point a gentleman on the train hinted me to look outside, as I saw the Pamukkale embedded in the ranges of mountains, a quite phenomenal sight.
I found the trees and posts were in good symmetry in this shot.
Not long after that we arrived at Denizli Train Station, settled ourselves in the hotel room just nearby, and went out in search of dinner.
As usual, apart from the chillis I'm perfectly fine with these dishes, while my father kept complaining about their brown rice and their onions.
The restaurant offered these two kinds of yogurt at the same price. After they were served we found out the only difference between them was the way they were packaged. As for the yogurt itself, I didn't like it. Maybe it's because the lack of sugar, maybe I'm just not fine with raw milk.
After dinner and before retiring to bed, I went up to the rooftop canteen of our hotel and take a few photos at the nights in Denizli, and the full moon.
END