Kusadasi was a blast! In many ways!!! Four big cruise ships ported here, being re-routed from Israel and Egypt, and/or being scheduled to port on the “bird island” = Kusadasi. It is beautiful here, rich in culture, lot of money floating around from millions of tourist and Turkish locals who own vacations homes along the coast.

Our tour is only half a day long, so we’d better hurry: two major tourists attractions are on the program. Our guide is hopeful that we’ll beat the crowd by going to the house of Virgin Mary first, but so did 249 other bus loads full of people! It is a zoo, feels light the cattle in the slaughterhouse, it is a holy place and everybody has it in their bucket list. Holy shit!The Virgin Mary, Jesus’ mom, apparently lived here the last 5 years of her life. And the Turkish locals make a lot of money of this special place.

The second destination is Ephesus, Efes, an archeological site that is only partially excavated. It is a big area with lots of private houses and public buildings, where artifacts were discovered, indicating medical clinics, libraries, all kinds of stores, etc. It is amazing to see the excavation in progress on one side of the street and the finished results on the other side.

Apparently this is the original backgammon game – as an avid player, that made my heart beat faster!

Other interesting areas included a public toilet with nice views to the market place. Here, important decision were made, negotiations were done, discussions held place. The very rich made their slaves sit here for a while to warm up the spot beforehand…

More interesting views, for example mosaic work with beautiful details… At the bottom, the amphitheater indicating that Efes was a town of 250,000 people!