Saturday 28th November – Bergama to Ephesus – “The kindness of strangers”

Knowing that we only had about 200 kilometres to drive to get to Selçuk and Ephesus we weren’t in a hurry to leave, so it was after 1100 when we finally departed Bergama.  We hit our first bit of Turkish motorway in order to bypass Izmir, which is Turkey’s third largest city but reportedly first in the traffic congestion stakes.  We were pleasantly surprised when we got to the toll booths to see notices plastered all over them saying that due to Kurban Bayrami the motorways were free over the weekend – score.
 
Bergama had a nice feel to it as we drove in and navigated to the campsite behind the 14th century Ísa Bey Camii mosque.  The campsite was packed compared to what we were used to – there was a German couple in a camper van AND a German lady in a Renault Kangoo, travelling solo.  As it was only about 1430 we walked into town to visit the Ephesus Museum in preparation for going to the actual site tomorrow.  On our way in, via the remains of a Byzantine aqueduct, we met Finola (a Brit) who lives in Selçuk, and, upon hearing that we were camping, she invited us to her apartment for some home comforts. SPOT

We arranged to meet up at 1815 as we still had to look around the museum.  The latter was impressive, with the overexcited effigy of Priapus (the Phallic God) being amusingly displayed in a darkened case - you had to switch on a light in order to see him.

As Priapus’ picture is plastered on postcards everywhere you look in Bergama I’m not sure why he’s kept in the dark in the museum.  There were also some amazing statues of Cybele/Artemis on display.

Finola said that it was “the kindness of strangers” that are often the greatest memory people have of places, and as she has done a lot of camping in her time she thought that we might just like to put our feet up for a couple of hours and watch some TV.  How right she was, it was great.  She also pointed out the best place in Selçuk for a takeaway kebap, where to buy real butter (as we had complained that all we could find in the supermarkets was margarine), the peanut man where she regularly buys her 1TL of peanuts and the fish man who had just introduced her to the pleasures of freshly cooked sardines in bread.  She even bought and fed us sardines, and we had a really relaxing few hours of normality.

Finola came to Selçuk for two days and has, so far, been here a year, having bought a house which is in the process of being renovated (although she’s having issues with her builder – seems like a worldwide phenomena) and is renting an apartment in the meantime.  She has lived and worked in a number of countries and has a great interest in international politics, filling us in on all sorts of behind the scene goings on in the world.

The one disappointment of the day was that I lost my fake wedding ring, although it shouldn’t matter too much re the countries we are now going to travel through.  Anne says that if we have a fake divorce she’s getting custody of the Camel.