Our group was off early to beat some of the crowds at the ancient Greek city of Ephesus. Now a UNESCO world heritage site, Ephesus once served as the capital city of the Asia province of the Roman Empire.
According to legend, it was founded by a group of Amazons, famous for their exceptional skills as great female warriors, who also had a great ability to use bows and arrows. It is widely believed that Amazon women were priestesses of Hittite origin. So initially, the name of the city of Ephesus was Apasas. Apasas was the name of an Amazon Queen and means Queen Bee in the Hittite language. This may be the reason why many of the coins unearthed during the excavations have a relief of a queen bee on one side.
Ephesus was founded a second time around 1050BC by the Ionian prince, Androclos. The legend says that as Androclos searched for a new Greek settlement, he turned to the Delphi oracles for guidance. It was during the Roman rule that Ephesus reached its glory. The population exceeded 250,000 inhabitants which made it the fourth largest city of its time after Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch cities.
If I don't have everything identified correctly, I'm sorry. It's a huge site and overwhelming to see!
Toilets
Royal Kitty
View down the main "street" of Ephesus to the library
Beautiful mosaic walkway
Temple of Artimis
Ruins of the Memmius Monument (built 1st century AD)
Library of Celcus
Us in front of the Library of Celcus
Grand Theatre of Ephesus - now under renovations
We also paid extra to visit the Roman Terrace houses. WOW! It was amazing to see. The Terrace Houses complex consists of luxurious residential villas, located on a slope opposite the Temple of Hadrian. So far, two have been excavated. The excavation work started in 1960 and is an ongoing process.
After our tour of Ephesus, we visited a rug weaving center which works with local women, teaching them the art of weaving and provides a good source of income to this cottage industry.
The owner and one of the workers showed us the process of collecting silk and spinning the silk fibers into threads. This shop uses silk, wool, or a combination in their rugs.
This is one of the silk cocoons. They soak the cocoons in hot water and check them for softness then she uses the small hand broom to sweep them up and catch the fibers. It was an interesting demonstration and all done by hand (and foot pedal!).
All of their rugs are made using double knots.
After the demonstration, we were served a light lunch while they showed us several of the different rugs. This blue one is silk and was so beautiful!
More rugs
This dog wall hanging is actually woven and was 3-dimensional made from wool with silk highlights.
After the rug stop, we hopped on our bus and headed to the House of the Virgin Mary. According to Christian tradition, after the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, the apostle John took Mary to Ephesus for her safety. It is believed that Mary lived the final years of her life in the small stone house on Bulbul Mountain. It later became known as the House of the Virgin Mary and attracts pilgrims and tourists from all over the world. No photos are allowed inside the house. 
After this stop we went back to our hotel about 4pm. We had a short rest before part of the group (us included) went to a traditional Meyhane Dinner in Kusadasi. We were treated to a beautiful sunset along the way!
We had a short walk along the water before going to our restaurant.
We were served several different appetizers before our main course, but I really had a difficult time hearing what they were. Tobey had the meatballs for the main course, I had the chicken.
Sue, Wendy, and Tobey
Music was a BIG part of the evening. When they first arrived, the musician were sitting and playing across the room. Before long, they were playing at our table and in our ears.
Here is a link to the music and dancing video. https://youtu.be/uXnOlv6wiqY
This is Tobey being a good sport ... https://youtube.com/shorts/l7rxopRU-qQ
The restaurant began to fill up with more local people and it seems like 90% of them smoke which we are not used to. We got back to the hotel about 10:30 tonight and are pretty tired. Tomorrow will come early, so good night!
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