5 places i love - #5 ephesus

yes, turkey again. i'm in longing mode for turkey. it's brought on by having stayed home this summer and by the tickets i bought for october. 

ephesus is the ruin of all ruins. in my opinion, it's better than the acropolis in athens, tho' what's cool about that is it that it's in the center of a bustling city. ephesus can be quite over-run with tourists, but if you go during the heat of the day, which we always do, the crowds thin out pretty well.

these pix are from our visit 3 years ago, so sabin's pretty little in them. i remember we were trying to potty train her on that trip. she must have been three and a half. she remembers the trip well tho', and is also looking forward to going back.

here, sabin and i are walking along paths once trod upon by john and paul of biblical fame (and probably the beatles were here too at some point). there is even a legend that john brought jesus' mother mary to ephesus. paul wrote that little epistle to the ephesians while he lived here for three years. although i'm not religious, these biblical figures were real, historical people who lived and breathed in this place and i love thinking about that as i walk the stone paths. 

ephesus is very well-preserved, there are temples and an amphitheatre, arches, columns and even a rather large group toilet that's quite amusing. 

i absolutely adore this picture of little sabin, sitting below a statue of sophia, the divine wisdom. one of my favorite moments of the whole vacation that year. sabin's twin sister, who was stillborn, was named sophia, so it's that much more meaningful to me, the notion of the divine wisdom looking down on sabin.  this one is blown up and framed on the wall in our hallway.

ephesus is definitely worth the trip and i've already made a reservation to stay here, at a fantastic chill-out place nearby, where we stayed three years ago as well. we'll be there mid-october if you want to come and hang out.

5 places i love - #4 møns klint

down on the little island of møn, just south of sjælland, the island we live on, there is a fantastic phenomenon of nature called møns klint. it's huge, chalk cliffs and no matter what time of year, it's a wonderful place to go (if you're dressed properly for it). every once in awhile, a big bunch of it falls into the sea and that's a bit dangerous, but they're pretty good at knowing when the danger is high and they close the stairways then. because yes, there are stairways--two of them to get down to the beach. we counted 574 steps on one of them, but lost count on the other one.

 

these shots are from last february when we went. i haven't been there yet this summer, but looking at these shots gave me a hankering for it that i will no doubt have to satisfy in the near future.

there was a big landslide nearly 2 years ago, you can still see how milky chalky the water is in this shot.

when we reached the bottom of these stairs, our legs were like jello and we had to sit down for awhile before we could begin our walk on the beach.

here's sabin, poignantly resting on a beautiful piece of driftwood.

she's wearing her snowsuit.

you can go any time, as long as you're dressed properly for it.

when we're there, we search for these lovelies on the rocky shore.

they're fossils of small squid.

they're a beautiful amber color.

they say you can find amber too, but sadly i never have.

the other thing we search for is rocks with holes in them.

or with indentations that you can put a candle in.

and then we schlep them up the gazillion stairs.

but the last time, we seemed to find a lot of stone penises.

aren't they funny?

5 places i love - #3 basilica cistern, istanbul

down underneath the busy streets of istanbul, very close to the ayasofya, is the basilica cistern. although in the height of the summer, there can be a lot of people there, all escaping the heat down into the cool, mysterious depths, it is a marvelous place. it's a little bit spooky and dark and the way they've lit it and the slightly chilling new age music that's playing only lend to this delicious feeling of spookiness.

i recently saw one of the early james bond films where sean connery was still bond and there is a scene that takes place in the basilica cistern. it was originally built by constantine and then restored and enlarged by justinian in 532. it provided the royal palaces with water, even after the ottomans took constantinople in 1453 and clear up to modern times. there are marvelous columns (i've never counted how many) of all kinds, i suppose they were repurposed from old greek and roman buildings here and there. some are more elaborate than others, but it lends to the charm of the place.

two of the columns have a medusa head at their base. one is upside down and the one below is on its side. there's no adequate explanation for their presence there and the accounts i've read have no real idea where they came from. i'm not an archeologist but to me, it seems they were used because they were an available material at the time of building and the matter of their placement was one of engineering convenience. but perhaps i'm not romantic or imaginative enough to read some other meaning into them. they are very cool nonetheless.

it's quite a large chamber and there's absolutely no hint of it from the surface, you can walk along the streets with no clue whatsoever that it's there. i quite love the idea of it being there beneath the feet of the busy people above, languishing in its cool, mysterious depths and no doubt holding many secrets and stories.

5 places i love - #2 stobi

i could have called this week "my favorite ruins," since it's quickly becoming all about ruins. and i actually wrote a little bit about stobi before. but since it's one of the places i love, i simply must write about it again. 

it's an old roman town, first mentioned in writing in 197 BC, that's located in central macedonia, and while once it was just off the via egnatia, now it's just off the big north-south highway leading from central europe through serbia and macedonia, down to thessaloniki. 

when i first visited back in '97, there was no visitor's center, just a shack where there might or might not be an attendant that you should pay your 20 dinars to in order to go in. it's not fenced off and you can wander at will among the baths, basilica, necropolis, aqueducts, pillars and on over to the amphitheatre. when we returned last summer, there was a visitor's center, thanks to a USAID project a couple of years ago. they sold a few gift items and cold cokes and snacks and were very kind and friendly.

we have a habit of visiting ruins during the heat of the day. it tends to be a good way to have it to yourself, as all of the others have the good sense to seek shade during midday. for me, it's the best way to feel the winds of time blowing over you. it's somehow just best if those winds are heated to 40 degrees.  

stobi is blissfully undiscovered. when we were there last summer, we shared it only with a handful of workmen who were setting up the amphitheatre for a concert later that week. i think it's wonderful that they actually use the amphitheatre as a venue for such things. how fantastic to listen to music in such a setting, although we didn't get the chance, as we had to meet our plane home from istanbul and we were still far from there at that point.

there are a number of mosaics at stobi, the best one is this one in what they call a baptistry. but there are others and you can get very close to them and even walk on the mosaic floor of one that must have been a church. i've often thought that these beautiful animal and plant images would be great to reproduce in my own garden or on a table for the garden. i haven't done it yet, but i will eventually.

one of my favorite bits is this example of greek graffiti that you can find on the steps in the amphitheatre. i suppose it's someone's name, but i absolutely adore the thought of some young man (because in my head it must have been a young man) sitting there, etching into the stone. now that's some seriously enduring graffiti.

it's a marvelous place. totally off the beaten path. i like it much better than the more systematically excavated heraclea lycenstis in bitola, macedonia. it's so abandoned and yet so persistently enduring. if you're very quiet, the murmurs of the life that walked the streets and paths are still there on the wind. husband and i once roughly sketched out a screenplay that takes place there. it's a place that provokes the imagination. what more can one really ask?

5 places i love - #1 the northwest coast of turkey

having just bought tickets to istanbul last week on KLMs fab air sale, i am looking very much forward to going there in october. we'll rent a car in istanbul and head almost immediately down our favorite route over the dardanelles past the graves of gallipoli and the remains of ancient troy and winding down the northwest coast to eventually end up near ephesus. but we will definitely stop here along the way:

on the winding road between troy and on down to the bay of edremit the fields are full of ruins. an ancient column here, a crumbling wall there, an arch or two and the evidence of an aqueduct. it's all that remains of alexander troas, a city founded in 310 BC by one of the alexander the great's generals. to drive down the winding roads, encountering this evidence of antiquity left to crumble is a powerful experience. it's magical to imagine living there and farming that land, uncovering a marble column with your tractor now and again. one hot summer day a few years ago, we bought a sweet watermelon and ate it here in the shadow of the arch above. it was most definitely a moment of perfect clarity.

then we drove on to behramkale--site of assos. this is what remains of a great temple to athena built in 530 BC. it sits high on a cliff, overlooking the aegean. the island you can see out in the background is lesbos, which belongs to greece. it is a marvelous spot. if you listen closely to the wind that eternally blows across this place, you can very nearly catch the murmur of the wisdom of aristotle, who lived here for several years.

st. paul also passed through these parts and as you walk among the columns and gaze upon the marvelous view, you feel the weight of history. you have a strong sense of how temporary we are here on this earth. the columns overlooking the aegean have stood for 2500 years and will continue to stand long after we are gone. i love to think of the scenes they have witnessed and to lean my head against them and see if they will whisper some of their stories to me.

i really cannot wait to return in october.