Starting with breakfast, we decided to go to the dining room rather than the Windjammer cafe. A very fancy affair! We saw our night time waiter Gilberto and he set us down in his area. Normally people would have to go to the buffet section and serve themselves, but he arranged everything for us. Bonus! We really have been so well looked after and have had lots of special treatment. It's a great feeling.
After getting off the ship we were quietly surprised to learn that the tour we booked was actually a private tour. This meant our own guide, as well as our own driver! No big bus required. We had our own minivan and felt instantly relaxed. Our guide Suzan was fabulous (hello to Suzan if you do get on and read our blog)!
The main gist of the trip was to visit the ancient ruins of Ephesus, which were as impressive as Pompeii and yet another Roman site. We particularly liked the housing island, which was made up of 6 ancient houses and were clearly the most well preserved. Back in 1999, sponsorship money meant that this particular area could be covered by a roof section and restoration could continue.
We motored on to see one of the 7 Wonders of the Ancient World - The Temple of Artemis. Only one column of the 127 is still standing. Not much more can be recovered through excavation, as it is sitting on marshland and if digging recommenced, more water would rise.
Onto lunch in a really nice garden area at the back of a rug place. The courtyard was gorgeous and shady. We enjoyed a delicious lunch consisting of various traditional Turkish food. The stuffed peppers and meats were divine, as well as the dips, salad and the accompanying Raki - a Turkish type of Ouzo.
We met a very charismatic Turkish Aussie, who was born and bred in the Gong and moved permanently to Turkey in the late 80s. He was the head rug designer and very amusing. It's annoying that we can't remember his name, but we were given a very detailed lesson on how to make the rugs. The process and time spent was astounding and we were quite amazed at the level of effort that went into to this very traditional part of Turkish culture.
Next of course we were given a personal showing of an enormous amount of rugs. Unfortunately the intricate patterns are just not our thing and they really wouldn't go in our house. They found us one that would have been great, but the outlay of cash was not that appealing, especially as we didn't even know we'd be seeing rugs until earlier on today.
The venue was actually a not for profit education centre funded by the government, to ensure the tradition of rug weaving is continued. We like the way that this centre was providing locals wih employment and skills, but it still wasn't enough to get us over the line on the sale. The Turkish coffee was strong, but was also appreciated!
We had had enough by this stage, so we headed back towards the port. Along the way back we spotted two huge water slide parks! Awesome. Oh well, another time! Instead of jumping straight back on the ship, we sat down at a bar called Nicci, which was right beside the water's edge at the port. A cheeky couple of pints of the local beer (Efes), yes please!
The funniest thing was that the waiter saw our lanyards and seemed to think that we were cruise ship staff. He came back promptly with two membership discount cards for us to keep. Woot, we got two pints for 6€, but we gave him a tip to appease our guilt. As good karma, we are going to give our membership cards to some of the onboard staff who've we spent lots of time with.
We went back over to the local bizarre before heading onto the ship. It was pretty hard to dodge the over enthusiastic store owners. We bought some perfume and realised we could have gotten it a bit cheaper from another guy, but still snagged a bargain. It was a bit much in the end and is quite hard to simply browse, without being hassled. Most people were very friendly and quite funny, but it was time to go.
Back on deck Sherlock Holmes 2 was distracting us in our room for a while, but it did give a great opportunity to shower up for dinner. Dinner was well worth the effort once again. Tonight's meals consisted of clam chowder and crab cake for entrée, followed up with slow roasted pork and a wicked gyoza dish. The main course gyoza dish was quite small and so Gilberto came over and added to the plate. Hilarious, he is even stealing food for us now!
At lunch today they didn't have enough change in Euro, so we got 5 USD instead of Euros. That was ok with us, as it added to their tip. Anyway, the casino on board accepts American money as they are an American ship so it was casino time! The good karma paid off, we managed to reel back in some winnings! Yay!
Forgot to mention that we were one lousy point off winning the trivia tonight, but that keeps us in awesome stead in the aggregate standings. Team RaT! Come on!!!!!
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