Turkey Travels - Yalakivak, Selcuk and Ephesus

Yalikavak 

Yalikavak is a small beach/yachting town on the Bodrum Peninsula in western Turkey, we actually ended up staying in this area only because we couldn’t find good accommodation in the town of Bodrum so we choose to stay a bit further out in order to have a nicer (and cheaper) place to stay! Yalikavak is actually becoming a more popular holiday sport, it has an amazing yachting harbor for the rich and famous (Georgio Armarni has a yacht here) and the government is building new roads and shops in anticipation of it become a major tourist destination in years to come.

Our accommodation was in a tiny (possible not on the map) town called Gumusluk (they only have one min mart) and it turned out to be amazing! It was a small apartment, or pool house, complete with our own private pool – SCORE! What’s more the sunsets from our bed were amazing!

Unfortunately our sicknesses followed us there though so we didn’t spend much time getting out and about but I will do my best to make what we did do sound interesting.

After a long morning of sleeping, taking cold and flu tablets and swimming in our private pool (oh, we definitely got our use out of this nifty feature) we headed into the centre of Yalikavac, which to us was really quiet and peaceful compared to other cities we have visited but according to the people we were staying with it was crazy busy. There were lots of shops selling ‘genuine fake’ products, lots of Hollister clothing and Armani sunglasses, as well as lots of shisha or ‘water smoke’ as they call it here. So far we have found Turkey to be a relatively cheap country, except for alcohol because they have a huge alcohol tax. We also had lunch at a small restaurant by the harbor, I am dead serious when I say this was the best calamari I have ever had in my life, unexpected and amazing!

The next day the lovely couple we were whose apartment we were staying in invited us along on a private boat trip with some of their mates. The woman we were staying with is actually from England but has been living in Turkey for 10 years, her friends were a random mix of Irish, Poms, Algerian and Turkish but luckily for us the common language was English! 

We were both pretty tired and still not feeling too flash but it was a really relaxing day because we pretty much spend the day lying on the front of the boat (maybe taking a few naps) and jumping off the boat to swim and cool off each time the boat stopped. We also got a lovely and very traditional Turkish lunch with plenty of vegetables (yay!).

Selcuk & Ephesus

FINALLY we were almost no longer sick!

By pure coincidence we booked accommodation in a place called the ANZ Guesthouse, which turned out to stand for Australian and New Zealand Guesthouse and is owned by a friendly Aussie man from Melbourne! What are the odds! As it turns out the tiny town of Selcuk on in western Turkey has quite an Aussie and Kiwi population, there are several other hotels/hostels similar to ours: Hotel Canberra, Kiwi Pension and the Boomerang Guesthouse!

We chose this small town as a base to explore the ancient Greek city of Ephesus, the Temple or Artemis in Ephesus is one of the Seven Ancient Wonders of the World but now is unfortunately pretty much just some rocks and small pillars as a result of fires, earthquakes and general neglect (I didn’t even realise it was special so didn’t take pictures). Strangely enough all the excavation works at Ephesus have been done by Austrians!

The rest of Ephesus was pretty awesome – it’s a huge and very well preserved Greek settlement dating back to sometime BC. We caught the local bus to the bottom entrance and then jumped in a horse and carriage with some friendly Koreans to get to the top entrance of the site. Turns out those horses can move pretty fast haha!

The above photos are of us exploring Ephesus, the picture on the top left is of what used to be an old public bathhouse (they seemed to have a lot of these in ancient times), Michael is standing in a small ampitheatre and I am standing in what used to be a main street. 

Michael, just chilling in the small ampitheatre.

This was as we were kind of exiting the small theatre and heading back towards the old main steet. 

Top right: the Nymphauem Traiani - a fountain building donated by some ancient rich folk.

Michael and I are both walking down the main street, which was downhill and really slippery, it was pretty entertaining watching people almost falling over (including us). There were also heaps of inscriptions on the rocks and boulders. 

Above left: the Temple of Domitian

Above right: me doing my very best impression of a statue with all my statue friends. 

Top right: the Rhodian Peristyle - in other words a really old temple. 
Bottom right: no idea what this monument was called but I remember reading that people were buried alive at this site... also creepy.

Bottom right photo: Hadrian's Gate - there is a very simliar gate in Athens.

Above/below: the Celsus Library, probably the most famous monument in Ephesus, it was a library that was built over a burial chamber which is extremely creepy. It was partially destroyed by an earthquake but the front is still really intact and looks super impressive. I have no idea how people built things this high in ancient times. 

 I have no idea how people built things this high in ancient times but as you can see from this picture of me, it's huge!

Bottom left: the Church of Mary, or Council Church. this was rebuilt several times but obviously not very well because it is all but destroyed. 

Also an amusing photo of Michael is an old [but not ancient] train that we discovered, I think it must have been used when this site was being excavated. 

Above/below: the Great Theatre, home to theature performances, assemblies and also gladitorial contests (because what city would be complete without an area for gladiators).

The Great Theatre is actually really impressive, it's huge!!
Featuring token jumping photo.

Looking back towards the Grand Theatre and main street leading up to it, Michael called it the MCG of Ephesus - as you can see it's a pretty outstanding feature and looks pretty impressive even from a distance. 


We also spent a bit of time walking around Selcuk, it's a really tiny town and most people only come here to visit Ephesus on a day tour so as a result the town itself is very authentic and quiet. 

The top two pictures below are of our very traditional Turkish meal! The bread on the left is actually Turkish garlic bread with something that tasted like tatziki. On the right is Turkish pizza! It actually is cooked in in a shape like a row boat then sliced into small pieces, the dough was delicious and we could tell it was home made and super fresh!

Above left is a rug being woven, women do this by hand and it must take them weeks! We kept walking past this one shop and this is about the progress they make in a full day - crazy hard work but apparently the rugs and carpets made in Turkey are of an extremely high quality. On the bottom right is a castle which is on a hill just outside of Selcuk and overlooks the small town.

These pillars are on the edge of the small town of Selcuk, if you look closely at the closest one to the camera you can see a giant nest and a stork sitting on top of it! We had never seen a stork before in real life so it was pretty cool, they are huge birds!

After our Turkish dinner we walked around the main street for a while, I love all these shops, they look so beautiful and intricate and are always lit up with detailed stained glass lamps that hang from the roof! I think this picture gives a really accurate view of some of the traditional shops that we have seen so far in Turkey. 



Now that we have got some Turkish culture and history under our belts we are off to some of the most unique places in the world: Pamukkale and Cappadocia.