The Ephesus Archeology Museum is closed for renovations. Thank heavens! After five straight days of wandering through ancient ruins, I think we've all hit our saturation point. It's not that I'm uninterested in seeing the few remaining relics of this former Byzantine capital that are not housed at the British Museum. Quite the contrary. It's just that my brain is simply full. I realized this yesterday when I forgot my own shoe size - a fact that hasn't changed in thirty years! Hopefully it'll come back to me before I need new runners.
We left the Gallipoli Peninsula on April 9 and crossed the Dardanelles over to the mainland again on a local ferry. Twenty minutes later we were staring down at the 4000 year old walls of Troy. There is still a debate raging as to whether Troy actually existed outside the imagination of Homer and where it was located. A consensus seems to be building, however, that it did exist - right here on the Aegean coast of modern day Turkey. There's not much to see yet as the excavation work is still in its infancy. Judging by the number of Chinese tourists who are here just to get their picture taken in a hokey mock up of the Trojan Horse (NB We did too) I suspect it will eclipse Ephesus in a few years. Thank-you Brad Pitt.
After Troy we visited a stream of ancient Greek and Roman ruins including Pergamum, Pammukale and, of course, Ephesus. It's hard to explain how surreal it is to walk down a marble-paved street lined with crumbling but still beautiful statues, temples, baths, latrines, houses, libraries and massive arenas. Real people lived real lives here thousands of years ago. They worked, worshipped, went to the theatre, studied, loved, fought, paid taxes and died in these places that are now mostly reduced to dust. Ephesus, which boasts the most well preserved Greco-Roman ruins in Europe, has only been 20 per cent excavated and it took us four hours to see that. The rest lies just below the surface of the weed and wildflower-covered grounds - the capitals of ornate columns poking out here and there to mark the way. I can only imagine the secrets buried therein.
We all went for a jog this morning and happened upon a small parking lot with a fleet of tour busses hanging about. We went in to investigate and found ourselves amongst the remains of the Temple of Artemis - one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World! We had no idea it was here. Herostratus, an ancient fame seeker, burned it to the ground in the third century B.C. on the very day that Alexander the Great was born in Macedonia. Alexander offered to rebuild it when he conquered the place twenty or so years later.
After the death of Jesus, most of the Apostles fled the Holy Lands to Asia Minor - modern day Turkey. Both Paul and John made their way gradually to Ephesus and wrote much of the New Testament while here. John was accompanied by the Virgin Mary who Christ entrusted to his care from the cross. Both of them spent their last days here. John is buried right around the corner from our hotel and Mary, as the story goes, was assumed into Heaven from a house just up the road. The ruined Church of Mary in Ephesus was the setting of the Third Ecumenical Council, a meeting of the early Christian church leaders in the fifth century. After three months of acrimonious debate, the Nicene Creed was formally adopted as doctrine as was the belief in Jesus as the son of God. Christ never set foot in Turkey, but the biggest religious movement in history undoubtedly owes it success to the events that transpired here.
I'm not sure how much of this the girls are actually absorbing. It's complicated stuff, afterall, especially for kids who have never been involved in organized religion in any way. Even if you don't buy the literal reading of the New Testament, the history contained in the story, and many of the lessons, are worth paying attention to. I still believe that if there is a God, he exists in the lonely cry of a loon on a dead calm lake at dusk, or a hoarfrost-laden jack pine on a brilliantly cold northern morning - certainly not in some stuffy old church full of sad music, guilt and repentance. I'll retract from the fires of Hell if I'm wrong on that, for all the good it will do me. Nonetheless, these are the stories of my childhood and it's exciting to witness the scenes of these legends with my own eyes. As for the kids, my hope is that they come home from seeing this stuff with a greater sense of the wondrous world in which they live. They may never remember or care who Agamemnon or Hadrian were, but I hope they feel confident to head out beyond the confines of their own back yards, take measured and reasonable risks and savour the joys to be had in the embrace of other cultures and realities different from their own. That is the payoff for all the hassle that travel can sometimes bring with it.
Right now we're on a bus to Bodrum, the coastal town where we will spend our last three nights in Turkey before jumping on a ferry to the Greek Islands of Kos, Santorini and Mykonos. (Actually we're on a series of busses with tight connections which Deb is approaching with all the calm resolve of a participant in the Amazing Race.) Now, I'm not going to say that Turkey is our new favorite country. That would be fickle and disingenuous after already saying that about Vietnam and then South Africa. As a matter of fact, I've thrown the whole ranking system out the window. The reason these are all such incredible destinations is because they are so incomparable to each other and to North America. This having being said, Turkey is awesome in just about every way you can think of. We are going to miss it. I am, however, looking forward to digging into some crispy fried bacon again. Bring on the grease Greece!