Blanca & Ian's Travels

Turkey

Trip Report - 2011

Ottoman Odyssey
 
aka “It’s just a Jumble of Rocks”

Istanbul, Ҫirali, Selçuk, Göreme, Istanbul - Reprise

Selçuk

Urkmez Hotel – Selçuk: 

When good enough is good enough, this hotel may be enough for you but not for us.  Rough bath but functional.  Basic room but functional.  No phone.  Friendly staff.  Good breakfast & rooftop area.  Inexpensive & close to everything in Selçuk.  Check out the Hotel Bella if you want more, but I hear that it isn't paradise either.

http://www.urkmezhotel.com/

Day 7

We were up with the roosters today as we packed & left peaceful Ҫirali for a ~2 hour drive to Antalya airport & an 11:30AM flight to Izmir via Ankara on Anadolujet.  The drive went without incident except for a scary driver ahead of us who had a real problem staying in his lane.  We followed a ways back for 10kms or so & it was amazing to watch him on the twisty coast road.  This time, we found the Antalya bypass & drove straight to the airport easily - except for a two block jam just shy of the airport turnoff.  The flights – each about an hour – were via Anadolujet, Turkish Air’s discount partner.  The seats were squishier than Pegasus so it wasn’t a fun-filled time in the air, but they did arrive on time, as did our baggage.

We secured the car rental & bought a toll way card for 17TL to ease the one hour drive to Selçuk.  Once again, my pronunciation on this town was wrong:  sell-CHOOK appears to be close enough.

Selçuk, of course, is a small town that is a stone’s throw from the Ephesus site & it boasts a fortress on the hill, the remnants of an aqueduct in the town center, a very old Mosque, & the St. John burial site as well as the small Ephesus museum - not to forget the reputed Virgin Mary house.  The single column left from the Temple of Artemis (Seven Wonders of the World alert) stands on the edge of town near the turnoff for the lower north Ephesus parking lot.  It has several pedestrian-only streets that are full of eateries & small shops.  Obviously, the tourism industry is king here with a constant flow of tour buses disgorging their contents for their hit & run visits.  More on this later.  I had originally thought of Sirinçe vs Selçuk as a base for numerous days but I am very glad that I manipulated our itinerary differently. In my opinion, this area is useful as a gateway to Ephesus & little else.

We couldn’t locate our hotel – the Ukmez - so I called from a gas station parking lot & one of the brothers (Siça) came down on a scooter to lead us to a parking lot & to help with our baggage.  Parking was in a small free lot around the block - which fills up when the locals hit the downtown on the weekends.  This is a small family run hotel that was the low point of our stays, despite the friendliness of the staff.  The room was very basic & small with little cupboard space & a teeny bath that could use a bit of work.  My wife was really disappointed but we decided that we could rough it for two days since at 38TL (less 5% for cash) it was also very cheap.  As always, you get what you pay for.  It did have a balcony which looked over one of the pedestrian streets.  Well, pedestrian except for motorbikes, anyway.  And no elevator meant more stairs again – this time only two long flights up.

Dinner was at Ejder Restaurant which - aside from Ephesus - was the highlight of this town.  Hasan (the son) served us both nights (that's right - both nights) & it was very good.  His mother & father do the cooking.  He welcomed us as family the second night & gave us the rest of a bottle of wine when we only ordered two glasses.  Great flatbread (again) with the standard assortment of şiş & kebaps.
 

Day 8

When the early call to prayer rang out, I knew that we had survived the night in our ‘modest’ room.  We had a good breakfast in Urkmez’s restaurant which sports a great view of the fortress from the top floor.  This would certainly be the hotel’s best feature, although the brother’s that ran the place are very friendly & helpful.  We were rushing however, because we (well I actually & she reluctantly agreed) decided to try & get the jump on the legendary hordes of tour groups at Ephesus.  We parked in the north (lower) lot for 7.50TL & pulled in beside about half a dozen cars.  This was to change . . .  It was 9AM as we were passing through the ticky-tacky shops & the turnstiles.  20TL

Aside from the staff – the guys that dress up like Romans were just arriving – we had the place to ourselves.  If you have been to Ephesus, you know how rare that this event can be.  No one.  It was amazing.  We could even test the acoustics in the amphitheater (pretty good) since we were the only two in it.  By the time we got to the library, there were a handful of people milling around.  We snapped the obligatory picture in relative peace.  We walked right into the terraced houses without a line up & paid the extra 15TL for this interesting part of the site.  Villa Romana del Casale in Sicily might have more flamboyant mosaics but the addition of the wall paintings at Ephesus, really enhances the ‘realism’.  All was great & the site truly is phenomenal. But . . . by the time we exited the terraced houses, the hordes were starting to descend the hill from the south (upper) entrance.  It was a solid mass of tour groups.  We were going up & as usual, they refused to give way on their stampede to follow their group leader’s umbrella or flag.  He/she is typically babbling some canned & distorted version of the history of each photo opp.  What a scene.  What a shame.  We hurried to escape.
 

But lo & behold, the lower (north) parking lot was now a seething mass of huge tour buses waiting for their cargo at the bottom of the hill.  Thankfully, our car was not blocked in & I was able to drive into the part of the maelstrom that was in a circular motion toward the exit.  And I am not exaggerating here, folks.  I am describing this vehicular choreography quite accurately.  I have no idea where a late arriving car would park in that madness & I was very, very happy that I had pushed my wife for an early start.  And she even agreed that I had been right.  European coach (bus) drivers are truly magicians in the way that they can manoeuver those behemoths through impossible places btw.  It was a relief to get to the dirt exit road & speed away - back to our hotel area in the comparatively quiet downtown area.

For the rest of the day, we just wandered around.  We went to the Ephesus Museum - which has some incredible pieces - albeit not a lot of them.  Some shopping for tiles & trinkets etc in various stores followed.  We even let a carpet guy drag us in to pitch his wares.  As a whole btw, the prices were cheaper in other parts of Turkey, so beware.  We walked to the old mosque & saw the last column of The Temple of Artemis in the distance down the hill.  An anonymous lunch with a dinner repeat at Ejder.  Time to go, we were done.