30 September 2003 Tuesday - Kusadasi - 61 Photos

This morning, we drove back to the Roman city of Pamukkale/Hieropolis where we took some more pictures of the hundreds of gravestones in the necropolis.

We also drove to the bottom of the hill and took pictures of the white cliffs that look just like snow. When you look at the pictures, keep in mind it was about 80 degrees Fahrenheit, (27 degrees Celsius), so this is not snow you’re seeing.

Today we drove from Pamukkale to Kusadasi, which is a sea port on the Aegean sea. On the way, we stopped at another Roman city called Aphrodisias,

which is named after the goddess Aphrodite. It had many of the same features as the other Roman cities we’ve seen.

The site has a very cool Roman theater, a huge stadium that is very well-preserved

and another Roman theater.

I took a picture of Kathy standing by the stadium doorway where Christians would be led out to face the lions.

The city also has a cool temple dedicated to the Goddess of the city.

We went to a leather store, and I bought a hat. They tried to sell us other things, but we were too cheap to buy anything else.

Kusadasi is a bustling tourist town with a large natural harbor.

There is a huge cruise ship in the harbor, and Mete says that cruise ships are coming and going all the time.

Mostly, they stay for one night, and in the morning, they visit Ephesus, which is where Apostle Paul did some things, thus Paul's letters to the Ephesians. We're not seeing Ephesus until Thurday. Instead, tomorrow we'll see the some of the non-tourist sites, which I prefer.

One of the cool things about this trip, at least for me, is that there aren't huge crowds of tourists, as you can tell from the pictures. We've heard that tourism is down because of the war with Iraq and such, but it's probably more due to the time of year we're going. We've only seen one other American on the trip, and that was the rude woman at the palace in Istanbul. Other than that, we've seen plenty of Germans, Spanish and other European travelers.