After our late afternoon visit to Didyma, we had planned to stay at the Oracle Pension, a dumpy place located right next door to the great Temple of Apollo.  In fact, the pension has a very appealing patio that overlooks the temple where you take your meals or enjoy a cold drink.  This place is so close to the temple that it uses one of the ancient temple fortification walls as a retaining wall.  Sitting on the patio if you tossed a stone it would land on the floor of the temple.  However, the place was completely empty and grubby.  I think the old guy taking care of things was sleeping when we showed up and the rooms he showed us were dirty and just plain awful.  So in spite of his bottom line offer of $11/night we escaped and drove on to Selcuk, arriving as darkness fell. As usual, we didn't have reservations anywhere but our trusty guidebook highly recommended a new pansiyon, the Nilya.  We didn't see any sign of it when we drove in to Selcuk so we stopped and I hopped out of the car to inquire at an open bakery.  In typical Turkish fashion, the first young man I asked soon involved a friend, and then another, all of whom were trying to help.  Unfortunately, it was clear that they had never heard of the Nilya.  Just then the boss shows up and gets in the act.  Seeing my open guidebook he spies the phone number and calls the Nilya, taking instructions over the phone.  Before we know it, he has loaded himself into the back seat of our car to show us the way.  We never would have found the place without his help.  After directing us to our destination and speaking with the proprietor, he refused the money I offered and, after shaking my hand and wishing us well, he took off on foot back to his shop.  This little episode was vintage Turkey.  We found the people accommodating to a fault.

It turned out that there were no guests at the Nilya and the owner had to prepare our room. It was a perfectly charming place run by a very sophisticated Turkish couple. The husband is a diplomat in the Turkish government and the pansiyon is his wife's labor of love. We spent two nights with these interesting folks. We also had our best breakfasts here at the pansiyon, and in the town of Selcuk, within walking distance, we enjoyed arguably our best dinners in Turkey, although we had some dandies in Istanbul as well. Here's a picture of the Nilya's outdoor courtyard (our room was up top tucked in behind the wicker birdcage):

Many visitors to Turkey arrive via Aegean Sea cruise ship, and Ephesus is the only ruin they see.  The good news is that it is the marquee ruin of Turkey, so they are seeing something special.  The bad news is that because the world at large has discovered Ephesus, it's much more commercial than the other ruins we visited.  There were souvenir stands outside both entrances, huge parking lots with tour buses, and private guides that approached to offer their services as you bought your admission ticket.  Once inside the gates, tourist traffic was contained within well defined areas.  There was no scrambling though the rubble here, no exploring mysterious corners off by ourselves. That said, the reasons for Ephesus's success are obvious.  Ephesus gives you your money's worth. In its prime in the third century it was home to 250,000 people. It has undergone more excavation and big-time renovation than any other site in Turkey.  It is an attraction worth seeing.

For what it's worth, these first two pictures are of the Temple of Hadrian. Hadrian was Roman Emperor around 130 AD and he took a much heralded tour around the eastern provinces. To honor him, each city on the route built some magnificent structure. In most cases, they put up monumental city gates, suitable places to welcome the Emperor. In fact, back in the Antalya section, one of the pictures of me was at one such Hadrian's Gate. Ephesus decided that a gate wasn't enough of a tribute, so they decided on this temple. One of the cities we visited (does it matter which one at this point?) built some nice baths in Hadrains honor, another welcome variation from the many gates.

We had an interesting hustle pulled on us at Ephesus.  As we stepped out of the car in the parking lot, a young man approached us and told us that most people start from the other parking lot, at the top of the ruins, it being easier to walk downhill.  He explained that he was associated with a carpet craft school nearby, and that as a device to promote tourism and educate visitors about carpet making, they had a practice of shuttling visitors by car to the upper entrance for free.  The quid pro quo was that after we were done visiting the ruins, we were to follow him to the school where they would give us a presentation and explanation of the carpet making process, show us some students at work, and he would earn credits from the school for bringing us by.  We knew that this was a pretty unlikely scenario but this guy was very friendly, charming, non threatening and persistent so we went along with it and hopped in his car.  Believe me, there was nothing unsafe about what we did.  We just figured, correctly as it turned out, that somehow we would end up in a carpet showroom before the day was out. Later, as we exited the ruins, we glanced about for this fellow.  We were almost to our car when he snagged us and we followed him to a carpet place (school?) right across from the Ephesus turnoff.  We received a very informative tour of the place, observed the dying process and watched the laborious hand loom work required to make a carpet.  It was fascinating and, after talking Turkish politics with the tour-guide turned salesman, we dropped several million lira in the tip box and made our escape.  This little scam was in fact a very interesting addition to our day. After our second night at the Nilya, we didn't have any specific destination.  The following day about noon we were to fly out of Izmir, about an hour drive away, to Istanbul, so we had some time to kill.  We decided to take the scenic route to Izmir, driving up the Aegean coast and just sightseeing along the way.  This was a pretty boring day, the first of our trip, but it ended with a flourish.  We made the drive, got lost a few times on some back roads along the way, and finally made our way onto a toll road that led into Izmir.  We had managed to kill most of the day with our circuitous coastal drive and were approaching Izmir near sundown.  Unfortunately, instead of continuing through Izmir or offering a bypass, our modern highway simply ended right in the middle of this city of 3 million, dumping us into rush hour traffic with nary a hotel in sight.  Not content to simply put us in a minor quandary, it seems that every street in Izmir is torn up, closed or rerouted in some unlikely looking direction.  Before long, we didn't have the slightest idea where we were headed and what was worse, there was absolutely no opportunity to stop and park.  So on we drove, forced to make turn after harrowing turn, darkness settling in and everywhere cars, cars and more cars, all zipping in and out like, well, like Turks.  We finally pulled into a gas station and asked directions which wasn't the easiest thing in the world because no one there spoke English.  We were soon on our way and while we now sort of knew where we were, we decided to stop at another gas station to ask if there was a hotel nearby.  There was a police van at the station - it had just pulled through the car wash - so I approached and asked about a hotel.  There were 5 or 6 policemen inside and one of them spoke English.  He told me to come around to his door and hop in, which I did, thinking he would provide instructions.  Instead, thinking I was alone on foot, they started to pull out.  Once they figured out I had a car and more importantly, a wife with me, they provided personal escort (we followed their van) to a hotel.  After following them quite a distance, complete with a couple of U-turns, many lane changes and other hair-raising maneuvers, they stopped at a main street intersection and one of them began walking the wrong way down a very busy four-lane one way street, motioning me up onto the sidewalk/shoulder to follow him.  As rush hour Izmir whizzed by, we made our way upstream to the hotel where, baker style, the policeman took us inside and made sure the front desk clerk was prepared to help us.  Welcome to the Hotel Aksan! After this little adventure we settled in and spent a fine night at this large commercial hotel.  The next day, Wednesday, November 3, we drove to the airport, dropped off the rental car and hopped on a flight to Istanbul.