The View From My Beer
A glass of the local beer Effe Pilsner inside the Old Town Bazar. The beer was recommended to me by my good friend Turk Ergen.
Kusadasi
My Day
Today was broken into two distinct parts. I don’t often take tours, but sometimes there are places of great interest that are not close to our port of call. In addition, when visiting major historical sites there is often a big advanatge being with a tour guide that knows their way around and can help expedite our way through the large lines of tourists, with secret entrances or special lines. That was the case with the ancient city of Ephesus. It was the major attraction in the area but was 20km from the port. Getting up early and taking a half day tour meant I would also have time to explore the city of Kusadasi, my only real chance to absorb some of the way of life here in Turkey.
Ephasus (Tour)
The Rug Factory
After our visit to Ephesus, our bus stopped us off at a “Carpet Factory”, a place where hand-made carpets of made. I had ben to one of these before and wasn’t too keen on this part of the tour. While there is an educational element to the visit, it is largely to sell tourists rugs, for which I am sure the tour company gets a nice commission. After the demonstrations of how the carpets were made, a salesman was assigned to each and every tourist as they tried to convince us we really needed at least one of their carpets. Fortunately I was able to convince the salesman assigned to me that I had zero interest in carpets. I am on. cruise for twelve months, where would I put a carpet? So, we just ended up talking about a whole bunch of other stuff before I decided enough time had been spent for him to save face to his employer and I quickly departed to find the bus. There were a few others outside who had managed to escape quicker than me.
Kusadasi (Walk)
The tour bus dropped dome of us off downtown before returning to the ship. At this point I decided I really wanted some time to walk the streets and experience a small part of Turkish life. I had been frustrated on my one previous trip to Turkey and hadn’t gottent out of the airport, so this might be one one remaining chance to see a small bit of how people live in Turkey.
There was lots of evidence that this was a tourist city.
