July 23.  We just realized that the Turkish word for Ephesus is Efes, just like the ubiquitous Turkish beer. Coincidence? I think not.

We chose to walk to the site, which is no big deal. 30 – 40 minutes, but Mark wanted to enter from the Upper Gate so there was another 50 minute walk from the Lower Gate. It was hot, and we were offered rides from all sorts of horse carriage drivers. They wanted 40 lira – no thanks. In fact, I was glad for the exercise. On the way, we each got a lovely peach from a farmer's roadside stand – so delicious!

We finally made it to the Upper Gate and followed the Lonely Planet tour down. The site was PACKED as by this time it was about 11:00 and I was already hot and tired and we hadn’t even started yet!  A lot of the magic disappears for me when it’s crowded, but when you’re at a world class historical site, you gotta suck it up.

There were two highlights for me. One was the public latrines – okay, so I’m not sorry I didn’t live at that time. The second was the library – such a fantastic building. Oh, and the third was the amphitheater. It held 25,000 people – again, I felt tiny.  Mark liked the Memmius Monument where according to the sign, "at present there is no reconstruction at the site, but instead a Cubist modern architectural collage", Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference. :-)

After recharging a bit with a tamarind soda at the gift shop, we headed back to the hotel for a well-deserved dip in the pool. I figure we did about 12 km of walking – not much in my normal life, but not bad while on vacation!

In the evening we wandered about the shopping area before dinner looking for the elusive “Ali” that LEMA spoke of. Instead we found "Marco" outside one of the shops that sells the whole gamut of good-to-high quality souvenirs. He was a no-pressure, friendly guy and recommended we try Ejder restaurant for dinner. Turns out Bill Clinton has eaten there. It was good, and we devoured a mixed grill platter (the chicken was especially tasty) but didn’t linger. Instead we explored town for a while, checking out an evening market, stopping at a Turkish delight shop for a few sweets (yum!) and finally rested at a place for raki, backgammon, and apple tobacco water pipe. Mark had all the luck -- it seems he rolled nothing but doubles. I enjoyed the apple smoke so a good time was had by all.