Ephesus, Greece

Hello, Our stop at Ephesus went as planned. Even though this place figures prominently in the Christian bible, a book I am quite familiar with, I did not really know much of the history of Ephesus. I heard about more history and remember some of that. It was a great city in the early days. As a leader in learning, it developed a great library. This was also a city of many cultures that came together and learned from each other. We did not see the modern city, but toured the ruins which are being carefully restored. We also saw many dogs and a few cats wandering around. They tolerate stray animals and gather them up to neuter, give shots, etc. Certainly, these critters were used to people. Perhaps some tourists feed them as well as locals feeding them. We were often told that the tourist season was just over the week before so there were not some many crowds to contend with. Making us lucky not to be contending with crowds. This end of the season also affected the merchants who cater to the tourists. Some of them opened just because they knew that our ship was in port. We were told to be careful because of pick pockets. Again, because of smaller groups it was not as easy to be a victim. The library was more than one story tall. There was a fire, however it could still operate, even with reduced resources. An earthquake stopped it altogether. I believe some of this has been reconstructed or at least made safe for people to be around.

This is a picture of us in front of the library.

This is Leroy inside the library. Paula