Wednesday, September 17, 2025

September 16, 2025 - Canakkale to Ephesus Region, Turkey

As we headed out of the hotel this morning, I noticed the Lions Club sign by the front door. It's always fun for us to see when we travel since Tobey, Shari, and I are all in our Lions club at home!

After boarding the bus today we headed south along the Aegean coast to the small village of Adatepe. The small village is about 1000 feet above sea level on the western foothill of Mount Ida. It has a population of less than 400 people who live in houses that are over 300 years old. There can be no "new" construction, only restoration of the buildings that are there. The buildings have a combination of Greek and Turkish architecture. They are made of stone and most have two stories. They all have a courtyard and garden. It is surrounded by olive groves. In 1989, Adatepe was declared an urban protected area of first grade, being the only one with this status in the region. We walked up the cobblestone streets and enjoyed the village.
Interesting art on the side of this house.




There is even a small mosque in the village.


I loved this beautiful blue door.

After our walk through the village, we had a stop at the local restaurant to taste some of the local olives, olive oil, and Turkish tea. The olives were much too tart for me!

After our tasting we were back on the bus heading to Bergama where we saw a demonstration of how they make parchment. The parchment here is not made with parayapus, but with animal skin.

It was interesting to see, and of course, we bought a small souvenir to bring home made from the parchment.

We then headed to a local restaurant for lunch. The food was okay, but it did come with entertainment. The owner of the restaurant sang to us and then had one of our group dance with him!

This is a link to the singing. https://youtube.com/shorts/ojT_t2LxF-Q

After lunch it was back on the bus and heading to our hotel in Ephesus. These are a few pictures along the way.

Olive groves
We went through a few tunnels along the way.
This looked like some type of power plant, but with lots of pollution!
We saw this cat with beautiful markings at a restroom stop.

We finally arrived at the hotel in the Ephesus region about 6:30 pm. Dinner was at 7pm, so we quickly took bags to the room and went to dinner. Tobey and I, and Bill and Shari lucked out on rooms. We are on the Terrace level and have suites with a living room, large bathroom, large bedroom and two balconies! I'm not sure how we ranked to get this bonus, but I'm not complaining! Tomorrow we head out to see the ruins at Ephesus, so good night for now.

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