Turkey....ruins and a bath!

Of course with the unrest in turkey, we were concerned about stopping here but Kusadasi is way far south from Istanbul where they were rioting.  

This was an interesting stop...mom and dad did the biblical Ephesus tour and I did a quick Ephesus tour and visited a Turkish bath.

The ancient city of Ephesus was one the site of many civilizations and home to the Temple of Artemis, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.  Ephesus, founded by the Ionians in the 11th century BC, was ruled later by the Romans and conquered by Alexander the Great.  The ruins that we excavated in the 1800's are considered the most important in Turkey. St. Paul Wrote letters to the Ephesians and preached in the Grand Theater.  Ephesus is also where Mac Anthony and Cleopatra spent the winter. (I will attempt to put a picture of the explanation before the ruin and sometimes they just give you information!)

 An Ephesian cat!

 Check out the Nike swoosh coming off her right leg (your left) and the olive branch crown.

Pipe for running water

 Check out the vertical pipe in the right corner. Moved water in more than one way....these smart people!

 Metal bracket used to install the marble back in the day!

 Sewer system...when it was clogged, they opened this square to access and unclog it.

Our little show to with cleopatra, gladiators and more!

The grand theater where Paul preached!

After my tour of the ruins, I did see a lady weaving a Turkish rug outside a rug factory....I can't afford even the thread!

Turkish Bath

If you like going to the spa, you would like a Turkish bath....if you can get over the cultural differences!

You enter the building and go upstairs to change.  Once you are undressed (you could go naked, but I chose the bathing unit option...luckily so did everyone else!) you go downstairs to the steam room.  The steam room is a large octagonal room with benches about calf high all the way around except at either side of the entrance and faucets every so after about knee high.  In the center of the room is an octagonal table.  There is a shower on each side of the entrance, each to be used at different stages.  

After a minimum of ten minutes steaming, they lay you on the table in the center and scrub you with a loofa type mitt, removing all the dead skin, from your neck to your toes.  Once you've been scrubbed, you step in the shower and rinse the dead skin off.  The you visit the next gentleman and he washes and massages you from the neck down. Then, you guessed it, rinse agin.  From there you have several different options...oil massage, sauna, facial, etc.  I chose a cold beer and relaxing (only because I didn't have time for a 30 minute massage....15 minutes is jut a tease!)

Overall, a very interesting experience, glad I did it and will do it again if I get the opportunity!