Somehow we're just here by ourselves I got to cuddle a cat all of the intricate
detail is so beautiful we're starting the day up here and it still is going up
such a good explanation we're Jordan and Emily we left Australia in early 2022 with a goal to
spend our savings seeing as much of the world as possible we started in Southeast Asia gazed
at world wonders through India and Egypt and even drove the most beautiful Highway in the
world how beautiful could a highway really be mind-blowingly beautiful more recently
we've been discovering just how beautiful turkey truly is and today is no different
good morning from Selcuk Turkey yesterday we caught a quick bus to the
airport and picked up a rental car
and drove an hour south to get to Selcuk I thought your foot was a cat then
we are still on the western coast of turkey and exploring everything that's
here specifically here there is one of the best ancient ruins in the entire world and
we are so excited to be able to see it today this has been something that we wanted to see
on this trip since before we left I agree it's always been on my list I don't know if
I've vocalized it much but it's always been really high on my list the ancient city of
Ephesus and then I didn't even realize but there are so many different archaeological
and historic sites here that we might try and check out as well yeah it's gonna be such a
good day also we woke up to a million crows so it was like a plague was Upon Our House
The Ephesus car park is only like a six minute drive from where we're staying in Selcuk and we
have come to the southern car park because we've heard that this is the one to come
to because the tour busses don't come here they go to the other one so hopefully with
the timing we should have Ephesus somewhat to ourselves we've also gotten here potentially
a half hour early in summer it opens at 8am which is when we're here but I'm pretty sure
in Winter it doesn't open until 8 30. we may be waiting for half an hour but
we are at the top so we get to walk down and hopefully against the crowds if there are any
it's 8 12. it's just us some puppy dogs and some shopkeepers so far hopefully someone
comes soon and let's it's a pretty nice place to wait though there's so many dogs
two minutes do you think open 8 30. okay thank you you're welcome have a good time
we are in Ephesus and there's only one group of four people behind us
and they're on a tour so they're gonna take a while look at this
I am losing my mind right now right behind us is the library of Celsius and we are walking
down this incredible marble filled laneway by ourselves look at that
I don't think we've ever been to a place this crazy and this alone we
splurged we've got a little bit more expensive ticket so we can go in the
Terrace houses as well I just can't believe we're by ourselves almost by ourselves
we are here alone in the library it is so Grand it's this massive two-story marble
building and the detail on it is so ornate and because the sun's only
just Rising it's turned all this beautiful golden color I'm so lucky that we're here
this is crazy that we are in this Library by ourselves it's also a lot smaller than
I thought like the outside the entrance is so Grand and it's full of marble and detail and
then you come in and it's quite small the little niches where all the Scrolls would have been it's
so cool though apparently in Roman times this was the second most important library in the
world second to Alexandria second Alexandria we have been here for about half an hour just
running around the library the first lot of groups have started to trickle through so
we're not by ourselves anymore but one fun fact I did learn the other day when we were watching
some YouTube videos about this place is that each of the four statues at the front of the library
represented a personality trait of the guy the library was built for I don't really know what
the traits were or who the guy was but that's a cool thing I think one of them is knowledge vanity
moving on
another thing we learned is that they've only discovered 15% of Ephesus means
there's so much more that's beneath our feet apparently it stretches all
the way out to these mountains it's just underground and people haven't found yet
so as the years roll on they're just going to keep finding more cool things which is
kind of crazy because it is huge already the fact that this is only 15% is mind-blowing
so we learned that theaters like this were designed to hold 10% of the population what
that means is they could estimate how many people roughly would live here and because this theater
holds 24 000 people they think about 240 000 people lived here at the heart of the Roman
period and somehow we're here by ourselves just like at the library it's huge I didn't think it
would be this big and they actually used to hold Like Gladiator fights here as well
yeah they had concerts performances Gladiator fights everything was done here it's massive
I am a lion tamer that's my Gladiator I'm sorry what is this my cat now she's purring
tried to stand up and she just wanted to come with me huh cozy little bugger of all the things
I thought would happen today at Ephesus this is not one of them these are the toilets in Ephesus
back in the day going to the toilet was not a private Affair it was a communal activity
what surprises me is how close they are together like you would be touching legs I always start on
this one and you were sat on that one our legs would be touching while we're pooing
so because we paid the extra five dollars to get in we do have access
to these Terrace houses too from what I understand
they're just houses for incredibly Rich families here like top in the world rich
but it's cool and if you're going to come all the way to emphasis you might as well come in here too
for the extra money to get in here it is absolutely worth it the intricate detail
of like the mosaics and the wall paintings is just mind-blowing and what's really cool
is each room would have a theme so like the kitchen would have wall paintings of fish or
Ducks things that you would eat bedrooms would have like birds or nice relaxing things it's
just crazy to see how super uber duper wealthy people lived back in the day and they're still
Excavating stuff like literally right now there's two people working in a room Excavating stuff
that's insane to me it's crazy I think my favorite thing is the mosaics like they're
so intricate the tiles are so tiny but then the Mosaic is massive and you get to walk over it
on this glass platform so cool definitely worth coming here if you come all the way to Ephesus
might as well it's an extra five dollars like so worth it
this whole ancient city was a Port City how was it a port city we are miles from the coast
I had such a good morning here not only is like the views amazing but we're here
by ourselves which we didn't know whether or not we'd get lucky in that sense because we
have seen some recent videos of people being here and it's been packed but somehow we're
just here by ourselves I got to cuddle a cat all of the intricate detail is so beautiful
I love it I'm so happy I feel like the day's only going to get better as well we probably are gonna
get eat some more delicious Turkish food we get to go see one of the original wonders of the world
like it's just we're starting the day up here and it still is going up such a good explanation
so, answered a little bit of question about the city being a port city apparently they
were pretty close to the coast but they decided to just man-made build canals that come all the
way up into the city so there's literally a road called Harbor Road it takes you from the stadium
all the way to the man-made Canal which then would go out to the Sea just crazy that they
how do they do that that they were able to think of that and do it and execute it and
what that's so cool we were wondering like why they stopped Excavating this road and what it's
like the easiest thing you know it's either going to go forward left or right but because it meets
the water crazy we have been here for an hour and a half and we've just seen our first huge
tour Group which is kind of okay because we're gonna make our way back up to the entrance we
first came in and do the whole thing again but listening to an audio guide it's between Ephesus
at 8 30 in the morning is we walked this whole thing by ourselves at 11AM there's so many people
classic, Ephesus is so cool we had so much fun and we were there for four
hours little tidbit if you're parking at the top or bottom there are no signs but
people come around and ask for money so just be aware and have a little bit of
money it's 25 Lira to just park there was no one here when we got here there was no signs
highly recommend audio guide if you come to Ephesus because it just made it so much
more interesting walking around getting all of these things pointed out that we didn't
notice you can download free ones so there's really no excuse just do it now we're going to
one of the original wonders of the world it is not going to be as Grand as Ephesus was
but we'll imagine use our imagination and then food because it's 12 30 and I'm hungry
and this this is All That Remains from The Amazing massive structure that was the Temple of Artemis
one single pillar is left
it would have been huge though even that one pillar is massive
it was one column
um cool to see it would have been massive if it was fully built like incredibly big but it wasn't
so it's just a column in the field I am hungry now though so we'll get some lunch we have come
to a place right across from our hotel which is meant to have the best Durham in all of sale trip
thank you oh wow they're so good
that chicken is so tender and chargrilled oh and it almost is like the tortillas homemade
so good yesterday we saw these like dessert Charro
looking sugar syrupy things so I think we deserve one of those after this
and come full circle don't even know what these are but it looks so good
so sugary and sweet we've seen them a few places all we know is it looks like sugar
oh it's like a really sugary churro it's been drenched in like the sugar syrup from baklava also
kind of reminds me of the old famous jalibi Walla is that what it was called in India yeah it was
like essentially the same thing like fried dough saturated in sugary syrup it's very small and a
great way to finish in Selçuk I've had such a good day what a massive bucket list item we've checked
off now and it was like a perfect day as well I think my last and best tip is if you are wanting
to see episodes and you want to see it properly stay in Selçuk the night before so you can just
get up and go and be the first one there because it just looks incredible when there's no one else
there yeah so special to be there by yourself tomorrow we are driving to another bucket list
item in Turkey which I'm so excited for pressure's on now it has to beat this is such a good day