Right now I'm in Naples, just headed back to the ship after a fabulous tour around Pompeii. I'll mention that in a minute but first I have to tell you what these last few days have shown me. First, I haven't talked about Ephesus-great place. It is not far from the port of in Turkey called Kudasaki I think (don't have time to look it up right now) so we basically jumped off the ship and jumped into a cab for a gorgeous 20 minute ride down the coast. The weather, just like every other day, was perfect. I can't believe what amazing weather we have had. Even down to today at the very last port, the weather is sunny, 70's, light breeze, not hot, not cold, just PERFECT! I am definitely going to miss the Mediterranean.
Anyway, so gorgeous drive, get to Ephesus and find basically mini Rome. It was a really cool place but it reminded me of many of the ruins I saw already in Rome, only on a smaller scale. That was actually cool to see that the smaller cities were built after the capitol. Since the system worked, why change it? You could see grooves in the cobblestone from the chariots, bath houses with the same ingenious aqueduct system-heated and cold, a big library, some brothels, a public toilet (I got a fun picture of that), a town market square, temples for worshipping their many gods, and the best part of all-the ampitheater. Why was the ampitheater so cool you ask? Because the Apostle Paul spoke there to 25,000 people who did not agree with what he had to say and from that event he was exiled from Ephesus altogether. I stood in the center of that theater trying to imagine what it would be like to look up into 25,000 unfriendly faces knowing the probable outcome of your words. I have always greatly admired Paul but after that experience, my admiration increased ten fold. It made quite the impression on me and I felt so privileged to be where he was. Other famous biblical characters who resided there include John (who wrote the 4th or 5th book of John there, can't remember which at this moment) and possibly even Mary, the mother of the Savior. They have no proof that she lived there, but assume that she went with John and that she and he both died in that place. We spent several hours walking around those ruins, I just wanted to capture it all.
Our cab driver gave us some fun surprise visits on the way back to the ship and since he didn't speak English he just pretended not to know what we were saying when we would say "no, just take us back, no please, we don't need to stop again, no seriously please just take us...okay, thank you this is a great stop thank you so much for stopping here." I am sure he gets kickbacks for taking us to these places so there was no way he was going to pass them by. First we went to a carpet factory-out in the middle of nowhere by itself mind you-and after a warm greeting they gave us a tour. We had no idea what was going on, we just knew we were supposed to get out of the cab so every stop was an interesting surprise. The factory was actually pretty cool, he showed us every step of making a carpet from spinning the silk to weaving the rug. There were several women working on different carpets and some of the designs were very difficult. I was glad we made that stop. But of course after the tour they whip out all the carpets they have made and start encouraging you to make an offer. The carpets were definitely the best I had seen on our trip but none of us had any money whatsoever, so he kept reminding us that we also have credit cards and he will even trade in our cameras if we want. The carpets there are much more expensive then in the Bazaars and I can't even afford those so we all had to decline. Some of the rugs were 5000 plus but they were unbelievable. If I had money that is probably the one thing I would consider buying is a really nice silk carpet that I would hang on my wall and put behind glass so that no one could touch it. They were so pretty.
It took forever to get them to realize we really were not going to buy anything but as soon as we got out he pulls over to another house in the middle of nowhere, this time a leather shop. The whole store was full of very expensive, very nice but very ugly leather coats and leather pants-yes, leather pants. I wanted to take a picture of the pink ones but the owner didn't like that too much and since we were in the middle of nowhere with 3 huge Turkish men I decided not to push it. We got out of there faster, now realizing what was going on but wondering why he would bring 5 young Americans to a shop that has its own ATM inside the gate. I think they think we all have endless credit limits, but whatever. We eventually made it back and sailed to Greece for our final Greek port, this time in Athens.
Athens is enormous, but you can't really get a feel for its size until you get to the Acropolis which is up on the top of a very large hill in the center of it all. We entered the archaelogical site (which goes on for miles) at the base and worked our way up. Man, the Greeks sure knew how to pick em'. Each of the Greek islands we have been to have been spectacular and there are no words to describe the scene from the top of that hill. Unbelievable and unforgettable. On top of that, I stood face to face with the Parthenon and the Acropolis, the cream of the crop as far as Greek ruins are concerned-the things I have been learning about since grade school. The Greek civilization was amazing. How they got such a large helping of genius in arts, architecture, philosophy, math, science, and everything else is beyond me. I am consistently amazed by how advanced they were. Obviously other people have been too because people have been copying them ever since. We still use much of what they began. So yes, Athens-amazing. Not sure anything else can be said. The city itself is nothing too special, except that it is Greek and that just somehow makes it cooler than other cities, but it's huge and crowded and kind of run down and dirty although I suspect that it is nicer since the olympics that were held there.
They actually began a strike that morning in Athens and all the post offices, some of the trains and buses and who knows what else were shut down. We saw part of the demonstration and it was interesting to see all the police everywhere with shields and guns ready to fight back if necessary. Not someplace we meant to be in the middle of, that's for sure. We got out of there as soon as we could. Maybe we witnessed a little piece of Greek history in the making though. Who knows?
Okay, Naples and Pompeii, our final stop on the cruise of a lifetime. I would like to say it's nice to be back in Italy. Naples is not the greatest Italian city and yet it still has the Italian charm that I really love. I already know I want to come back to Italy. We still have to go to Florence and Venice but I already know I love this country. I want to learn Italian and be Italian and look Italian but I guess wishes only go so far.
So Pompeii is a little way out from Naples. About 87 AD a massive erruption from Mt. Vesuvius covered the town in 7 meters of ash suffocating everyone and everything in it. Pompeii was a different experience than any other ancient city we have seen. Only about half of it has been excavated so far (they are working on the other half) and it had to be restored after serious destruction in WWII but the restoration was not to show us what the city was like before, it shows what it looked like after. It isn't painted and cleaned like the other ruins, it is left just the way they found it when it was uncovered. It has a strange and ominous feel that makes the horrific event real in your mind. The ash and mud kept the city well preserved so even some of the people are lying in the positions they died in-adult and child alike. The city itself wasn't anything special, a typical Roman town with temples, baths, markets, theaters and such but its preservation is astounding. We walked through rows and rows of houses and stores and I could see so much of what their life looked like day by day. They even had a laundry and some bakeries still set up and some of the original mosaics are still on the floors of their houses. It isn't beautiful but it is powerful. I am really glad that I saw it all.
I think I mentioned this before but I continually think of the people whose lives we are stepping into and try and imagine what they would think of all this. Could they ever have known that 2000 years later people from all over the world would be touring their little town walking through their houses and down their streets? Could they have foreseen the day when their lives would be studied and their buildings excavated brick by brick? I doubt they ever thought that their civilization would be completely destroyed and life as they knew it would end in one day.
Anyway, it keeps hitting me how real these people were and how similar in nature they are to us today. Even though they lived long ago, they don't seem that different from any of us today. I think that is something I will take away from this whole experience. No matter when people live, no matter how different their lives might have been, there is so much that is universally the same. I like finding those connections. I like to remember that they were and are real.
Anyway, so gorgeous drive, get to Ephesus and find basically mini Rome. It was a really cool place but it reminded me of many of the ruins I saw already in Rome, only on a smaller scale. That was actually cool to see that the smaller cities were built after the capitol. Since the system worked, why change it? You could see grooves in the cobblestone from the chariots, bath houses with the same ingenious aqueduct system-heated and cold, a big library, some brothels, a public toilet (I got a fun picture of that), a town market square, temples for worshipping their many gods, and the best part of all-the ampitheater. Why was the ampitheater so cool you ask? Because the Apostle Paul spoke there to 25,000 people who did not agree with what he had to say and from that event he was exiled from Ephesus altogether. I stood in the center of that theater trying to imagine what it would be like to look up into 25,000 unfriendly faces knowing the probable outcome of your words. I have always greatly admired Paul but after that experience, my admiration increased ten fold. It made quite the impression on me and I felt so privileged to be where he was. Other famous biblical characters who resided there include John (who wrote the 4th or 5th book of John there, can't remember which at this moment) and possibly even Mary, the mother of the Savior. They have no proof that she lived there, but assume that she went with John and that she and he both died in that place. We spent several hours walking around those ruins, I just wanted to capture it all.
Our cab driver gave us some fun surprise visits on the way back to the ship and since he didn't speak English he just pretended not to know what we were saying when we would say "no, just take us back, no please, we don't need to stop again, no seriously please just take us...okay, thank you this is a great stop thank you so much for stopping here." I am sure he gets kickbacks for taking us to these places so there was no way he was going to pass them by. First we went to a carpet factory-out in the middle of nowhere by itself mind you-and after a warm greeting they gave us a tour. We had no idea what was going on, we just knew we were supposed to get out of the cab so every stop was an interesting surprise. The factory was actually pretty cool, he showed us every step of making a carpet from spinning the silk to weaving the rug. There were several women working on different carpets and some of the designs were very difficult. I was glad we made that stop. But of course after the tour they whip out all the carpets they have made and start encouraging you to make an offer. The carpets were definitely the best I had seen on our trip but none of us had any money whatsoever, so he kept reminding us that we also have credit cards and he will even trade in our cameras if we want. The carpets there are much more expensive then in the Bazaars and I can't even afford those so we all had to decline. Some of the rugs were 5000 plus but they were unbelievable. If I had money that is probably the one thing I would consider buying is a really nice silk carpet that I would hang on my wall and put behind glass so that no one could touch it. They were so pretty.
It took forever to get them to realize we really were not going to buy anything but as soon as we got out he pulls over to another house in the middle of nowhere, this time a leather shop. The whole store was full of very expensive, very nice but very ugly leather coats and leather pants-yes, leather pants. I wanted to take a picture of the pink ones but the owner didn't like that too much and since we were in the middle of nowhere with 3 huge Turkish men I decided not to push it. We got out of there faster, now realizing what was going on but wondering why he would bring 5 young Americans to a shop that has its own ATM inside the gate. I think they think we all have endless credit limits, but whatever. We eventually made it back and sailed to Greece for our final Greek port, this time in Athens.
Athens is enormous, but you can't really get a feel for its size until you get to the Acropolis which is up on the top of a very large hill in the center of it all. We entered the archaelogical site (which goes on for miles) at the base and worked our way up. Man, the Greeks sure knew how to pick em'. Each of the Greek islands we have been to have been spectacular and there are no words to describe the scene from the top of that hill. Unbelievable and unforgettable. On top of that, I stood face to face with the Parthenon and the Acropolis, the cream of the crop as far as Greek ruins are concerned-the things I have been learning about since grade school. The Greek civilization was amazing. How they got such a large helping of genius in arts, architecture, philosophy, math, science, and everything else is beyond me. I am consistently amazed by how advanced they were. Obviously other people have been too because people have been copying them ever since. We still use much of what they began. So yes, Athens-amazing. Not sure anything else can be said. The city itself is nothing too special, except that it is Greek and that just somehow makes it cooler than other cities, but it's huge and crowded and kind of run down and dirty although I suspect that it is nicer since the olympics that were held there.
They actually began a strike that morning in Athens and all the post offices, some of the trains and buses and who knows what else were shut down. We saw part of the demonstration and it was interesting to see all the police everywhere with shields and guns ready to fight back if necessary. Not someplace we meant to be in the middle of, that's for sure. We got out of there as soon as we could. Maybe we witnessed a little piece of Greek history in the making though. Who knows?
Okay, Naples and Pompeii, our final stop on the cruise of a lifetime. I would like to say it's nice to be back in Italy. Naples is not the greatest Italian city and yet it still has the Italian charm that I really love. I already know I want to come back to Italy. We still have to go to Florence and Venice but I already know I love this country. I want to learn Italian and be Italian and look Italian but I guess wishes only go so far.
So Pompeii is a little way out from Naples. About 87 AD a massive erruption from Mt. Vesuvius covered the town in 7 meters of ash suffocating everyone and everything in it. Pompeii was a different experience than any other ancient city we have seen. Only about half of it has been excavated so far (they are working on the other half) and it had to be restored after serious destruction in WWII but the restoration was not to show us what the city was like before, it shows what it looked like after. It isn't painted and cleaned like the other ruins, it is left just the way they found it when it was uncovered. It has a strange and ominous feel that makes the horrific event real in your mind. The ash and mud kept the city well preserved so even some of the people are lying in the positions they died in-adult and child alike. The city itself wasn't anything special, a typical Roman town with temples, baths, markets, theaters and such but its preservation is astounding. We walked through rows and rows of houses and stores and I could see so much of what their life looked like day by day. They even had a laundry and some bakeries still set up and some of the original mosaics are still on the floors of their houses. It isn't beautiful but it is powerful. I am really glad that I saw it all.
I think I mentioned this before but I continually think of the people whose lives we are stepping into and try and imagine what they would think of all this. Could they ever have known that 2000 years later people from all over the world would be touring their little town walking through their houses and down their streets? Could they have foreseen the day when their lives would be studied and their buildings excavated brick by brick? I doubt they ever thought that their civilization would be completely destroyed and life as they knew it would end in one day.
Anyway, it keeps hitting me how real these people were and how similar in nature they are to us today. Even though they lived long ago, they don't seem that different from any of us today. I think that is something I will take away from this whole experience. No matter when people live, no matter how different their lives might have been, there is so much that is universally the same. I like finding those connections. I like to remember that they were and are real.
2 comments:
So, Monique, I don't know if you know the WWII history with Grandpa
Kevin. While,you are traveling thru Italy...know that he was in on the invasion of Sicily under Patton and he walked as well as rode on the tanks. He traveled thru Rome and the troops visited with the Pope. He basically traveled the length of Italy and was in on the invasion of the Southern shores of France.I am glad that Italy is in a better place as he saw a different scenario during the war....more later...stay safe.
Aunt Patti
This trip of yours is amazing. I probably would have planned the entire month in Paris and missed the most interesting places nearby.
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