Greek Cruise Day 2: Kusadasi and Patmos

Today we had an early start in Kusadasi,Turkey. We woke up at 6 am for breakfast but a tragedy had struck - I was sick (a head cold) and had lost my appetite. I was so jealous watching Mum, Dad and Luke much on their bacon and eggs... Oh, woe is me.

Today we went on an organized tour of Kusadasi because we had no idea what was in Kusadasi. Our tour guide explained that Turkey is a part of Asia minor and Europe. Our first stop was the believed to be house of the Virgin Mary. It is believed that St John brought Mary from Jerusalem to Turkey to protect her.



Drinking some Holy Water to try to get better!



After this we were taken to the ancient city of Ephesus for 2 and a 1/2 hours. The city of Ephesus is very large and back then the city was an important port but over thousands of years the sea has retreated. Our tour guide took us to the main places of interest like the temple of Artemis (Greek God of Hunting), which was one of the 7 Wonders of the Ancient World and Hercules gate.



The Library was also the third largest ancient Libary in the world. Compared to the school Libary it was fairly small, I don't think the Turkish and Greeks were big on reading.



We finished off the tour with a demonstration of how silk is made.






Then we watched how Turkish rugs are made on a loom. Turkish rugs have a double knot compared to Persian rugs which have a single knot. The threads are put on one at a time and it turns out that it would probably take 8 months to do a very complicated tea towel sized rug in silk. Rugs are priced according to the number of knots. At the end Mum and Dad asked how much for a silk rug that was just a bit bigger than a teatowel and the man replied "aah this one... about €6000" that quickly stopped Mum and Dad in their tracks and then quickly got us out of there.






Our second stop of the day was Patmos. Patmos was home to St John when he was exiled from Ephesus and also the Grotto of the Apocalypse. You can tell that Dad was really excited about this so instead we took a bus to the beach. It wasn't the greatest beach of all time, the beach near the port would have been just as good and not required the bus transfer. We swam for awhile and the rest of the time we lay on the beach and tried to make a dry stone wall with the rocks on the beach.



The day was interesting at first and a bit boring later in the day. Tomorrow we are in Santorini.

Jake

Location:Aegean sea