Cappadocia & Ephesus

marckittner
Nov 2
3 min read

I hope this finds you well. On October 22nd, we flew from Newark to London and then through Istanbul to Cappadocia in the center of Turkey.

Cappadocia is a region filled with weathered “fairy chimneys” that were created over millennia of volcanic eruptions and erosion by the elements. In the time when Christianity was first growing, Christian communities carved cave dwellings into the rock, allowing them to escape persecution by the Romans as well as from the 7th century Arab invaders. Many of these cave homes have now become tourist lodgings.

We stayed in a hotel in Goreme, one of three main towns in the area. Hotel rooms here have been chiseled into these hoodoos, as they are formally called. Many cave rooms were like ours, with carpets and kilims softening the stone floors and windows that opened to views of the area. Many of the restaurants are on terraces that look out over the Goreme valley.

It is a popular place for hiking but a main attraction is ballooning over this fantastical landscape as the sun rises. Though we signed up for a sunrise balloon tour, the weather conditions kept all balloon grounded on our tour day and for the rest of our time there. The closest we got was watching them our first morning there from our hotel terrace.

It is also an area that produces great quantities of pumpkin seeds. We stopped with our guide to visit with two women who were raking a large area filled with pumpkin seeds to make sure they got completely dry.

We left Cappadocia after 4 days and flew back to Istanbul and on to Izmir, the closest airport to Ephesus. This area was first settled around 1000 BC as a seaport and center for the worship of the goddess Artemis. Though completely ruined (a single reconstructed column marks the site), in its day the temple worshipping her was one of the 7 Wonders of the Ancient World.

At its peak in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD, Ephesus was the second biggest city in the Roman Empire (after Rome), with over 250,000 residents. We had arranged for a guide to spend the day with us because the ruins cover a huge area and were used successively by so many empires.

We started our day at the Basilica of St. John, which had a commanding view over an impressive mosque and out to the sea. In ancient times Ephesus was on the harbor, but the water has receded so much that it is now quite far away (visible if you look closely at the first picture).

When Jesus was dying on the cross, it is said that he asked John to take care of Mary, and from that time on she always traveled with him. They spent many years in Ephesus, and Mary had a stone house in a beautiful wooded area near the city. She is revered not only by Christians, but by Muslims as well, making it a multi-faith pilgrimage site. Some of the Koran’s passages about Mary were prominently posted.

Then it was on to the main Ephesus site itself, which is quite vast and full of people as it would have been in ancient times. The ruins themselves reflect the many civilizations—Greek, Persian Roman, and Christian—that passed through the area before the Ottoman’s came to power at the end of the 13th century.

The second row of pictures shows the site, which has been heavily reconstructed after centuries of neglect and multiple earthquakes tumbled most of the original structures.

We also enjoyed our small Nișanyan Hotel, tucked into the hills above Ephesus, near the village of Şirince. We had a small cottage overlooking the valley (the carved head board is pictured below), and the sounds of goat bells and donkeys braying made the sunsets even more enjoyable. The second picture is of flowers we found each morning in the large marble fountain in the entrance courtyard, which also housed the restaurant.

When we spoke with the founder and owner of the hotel, Müdje, she offered to let us go with her to the olive press where she takes her olives to make oil for the hotel kitchen. It was a highlight of our stay there as we watched her 2,250 pounds of olives get washed, ground and turned into high quality olive oil. After pressing, the oil was put into large plastic drums, which were loaded into the car for us to take back.