If you're traveling to Turkey, you have to make time to see the Ancient City of Ephesus.
We still wanted to see if it was worth a visit during the Coronavirus Pandemic
but unfortunately, we arrived a little too late on the first day and had to come back for another day.
But before returning, we wanted to start out first at a nearby unique village Sirince
Good morning! Right now we are heading over to Sirince Koyu. Sirince means "sweet" village.
15 Turkish Liras to park a car here in Sirince to then explore the village for the rest of the day.
Only 570! It's a tiny village. It is! We've seen smaller, but this is pretty small.
When you're in Sirince you should definitely try wine. They actually don't make the wine just from
the grapes, they use different kind of fruits to make their wine. We're going to try but Steve is
not going to drink as much as I will, because he'll be driving later on and we have to head
over to the Ephesus later. Sorry babes!
Of course the second we came into the village we stopped at the first wine house and
they are doing free wine tasting and the first thing that we're gonna try here is
the cherry wine... I like it! You get the cherry taste
the secret of Sirince is, they make sure that they get you drunk in the beginning of your trip
So you'll have a pleasant time. So you always think that's a sweet village!
Because everything is sweet! Now I'm trying the melon wine right here...
This is not for me!
If you like, you know, we can taste some of them, we can see the difference between.
This is natural one, by the way tastes little similar but it's not the same (as mulberry). Okay I can help you
we will be drinking later!
We learned two important things about Sirince;
first it was going to be one of two villages in the entire world to survive the mayan apocalypse
and then also that there was a big exchange between Tselaniki in Greece and Sirince, here in Turkey.
Greeks went back to Tselaniki and Turks came here to Sirince koyu (village)
We stopped for this stone coffee, the sand is protecting the heat it's still keeping it there
and this is a special kind of stone that they brought but for these special purposes and
there's a heat underneath and the sand is always warm and that way
it's helping the coffee to be made
Very delicious! Health to your hands!
Bon Apetite!
Thank you very much!
We've finished up at Sirince Koyu and we came over all the way to see Mary's house.
Virgin Mary was believed to live here
Parking is 15 lira entrance is 45 lira if you're a tourist
and it is about 25 minutes from Sirince Village, now we're gonna see this really quickly, and then we're gonna head over back into Ephesus
to complete our Ephesus tour from yesterday
Apparently, in 1891 this whole area was discovered thanks to a German nun
who had visions and dreams even though she never left Germany she was able to describe this place in exact detail
and they actually found this house where the Virgin Mary lived all because of this woman
who had a dream even though she had never left Germany.
No photos or videos inside, so see you on the outside!
It's such a small place, the second you enter you just feel the energy inside and they don't
take a lot of people all at once and they respect you to take time and pray inside
so Mary's house is open every day, 9 to 5, so you could plan around going to Ephesus and come to Mary's house
and inside the house itself, there's actually a nun who stays there and prays and only speaks italian
but she's there to pray over Mary every single day...
so now we're going to go back to Ephesus, and we're going to start from the top, normally there's tour buses there
but during the coronavirus time, very few tours are coming to Ephesus, so we'll see you there!
Here we are again!
The ancient city of Ephesus is actually 100 liras to enter and during the coronavirus times
the current times enter are 10 to 6:30 pm it was actually extended from 4 30 p.m
and we definitely recommend coming on the later side or very early in the morning
because it gets really hot here during this time of the year
September, October, April, May are definitely the best times to come
most of Ephesus is actually still underground only 25 percent of is above ground
and we're gonna go explore that 25
the one good thing about coming during the Coronavirus time even during sunset it is pretty empty around here
under normal circumstances, there'll be tons and tons of tour groups and there's
a lot of empty spaces to social distance and we really are appreciating that
Where are we?
This is our first stop is the bulletarium, it is where the council members of Ephesus debated on laws
all the way at the top of course because they wanted to meet at the top and look down the hill on their subjects
this place is all to ourselves, look at this! Nobody's here!
This entrance is separating the city area of Ephesus from the political side of it,
now we're gonna walk our way down the library session
so interestingly enough, they just opened these to six o'clock today, I guess we were here yesterday
and they weren't open at 6.
It's 45 lira extra but you get to see the terrace houses that have just recently been excavated and
added to the Ephesus museum, this is actually Gokce's first time seeing it, she's been here before
but hasn't seen these either.
Those mosaics are really incredible there was a blue one also when we passed by on the way in.
I mean it's really pretty in here and it's incredible to see just how big some of these houses were
The one and only habitat of the terrace houses right now,
Ephesus is actually a port city where even though right now it's 12 miles away from the water,
the water was up until here at the time and the port city was basically tying East and West cultures at Ancient Times
just like Istanbul does today, pretty cool.
Actually, after Istanbul became the capital of Roman Empire, Ephesus basically became the secondary place!
...and that's your fun fact for today, awesome Gok!
The mosaics here were apparently reflecting the social and educational values of the house owners
Another reason to come into the terrace houses is, check out this incredible view behind us you get
to look down and see their view that they had down on the entire city of Ephesus,
and it's incredible...
The Celsus library right behind me is the third biggest
library in ancient history after Alexandria in Egypt and Pergamon in Turkey
and this was a gift from Mark Anthony to Cleopatra.
No pressure Steve!
So, the Celsus Library actually was the third biggest library in the world like Gokce said,
It had 12 000 scrolls inside which is kind of a mind-blowing amount,
and eventually Alexandria got a little bit jealous. Of course!
And stopped sending them the scroll paper so Celsus had to come up with a new way to
write down everything. They found new paper, and then they started to bind them
and they created the world's first books!
The other cool thing is inside
There were actually three stories even though the facade on the outside is showing two!
so it was definitely a lot bigger on the inside even than the outside showing which is super impressive
for an ancient civilization that survived both Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome,
just like you my life, much beautiful inside than outside!
Thank you!
Today the major port city of Turkey is Kusadasi, and if you come in there you can actually take
a day tour from your boat up to Ephesus and we recommend doing so,
but back in its heyday Ephesus, of course, was the major port city and for people who wanted to come
in and find some extracurricular activities, they left the first ever advertisement right here
for them to find exactly where to go to find those.
If you're wondering if Ephesus during the coronavirus is worth it.
I mean, there's no people back there just Gokce and I,
so I highly recommend coming out to Ephesus and coming out to Turkey right now
because of the fact that it's a lot emptier than what it would normally be
so we made it to the ancient amphitheater of Ephesus, it could hold 25,000 people
and the best seats were probably actually up at the top 38 meters high
you could see down the marble walkway to the main street of Ephesus,
all the way down to the port it stretched for almost a mile or one and a half kilometers long
and it must have been something to set up there back in the day
and now Gokce is actually headed up to that top right now to get the beautiful sunset in
and I'm going to go join her...what a view! you see straight down the marble road and the sunset!
if you thought we were gonna end with the amphitheater you'd be wrong
because we saved the best for last...
...the public bathrooms of Ephesus. It's potty time ladies and gentlemen!
Directly behind us is the public toilets of Ephesus, we just made it before sunset and it's time to leave...
but this is everywhere everybody in Ephesus in close quarters went to the bathroom
and if a rich person wanted to come and have the bathroom,
they would have their slaves come and heat it.
So see, it wasn't the Japanese first heated toilets, it was Ephesus!
That's it for our Ephesus tour, we're leaving now.
Congratulations Steve, we're the last people to leave!
I think we earned our dinner with all the walking we did today
and yes it's pretty cool to be the best people out of Ephesus today!
So there's literally a flock, a herd, a herd of sheep right behind me,
coming straight through and there's a freaking ram, coming straight through the
Ephesus parking lot right now, I have no idea how we're going to get out.
Oh My God! Look at these sheep!
He was eating from the tree!
Look look look he's going to do it again! Look he's doing it again wooooo!
The goat is literally eating out of a tree
Love it!!!
That poor guy is late to the party!
Bye sheep
Meeeee!
6 am, still dark out, I hope this is all worth it...
This is awesome!!!