There are three ships in port today, The Odyssey of The Seas, a Seabourne ship and a P&O ship. Ephesus will be crowded. The busses at the pier remind me of the 4 x 4 sliding puzzles we are all familiar with, but the bus puzzle is more like 6 x 6 as the busses are juggled around to load passengers.
The weather again is perfect, about 75 with partly sunny skies.
We are taking a panoramic tour which takes us to view a few of the most popular sights, but not explore them in depth.
The first stops are to the restored Basilica of St John which dates back to the 5th or 6th century. Nearby is the Isa Bay Mosque built in 1375, and the one remaining column of the temple of Diana. All of the other remains are in a museum in London.
We pass by the ancient city of Ephesus which was built under the Ottoman empire in the 6th century, and is one of the largest archeological sites. A tour of the site can take a full day or more, and crowds are large. The city was totally buried by an earthquake and rediscovered in the 1800's.
Our shopping opportunity, every tour has one, was at the Alladin Rug Factory. The hand made turkish rugs were beautiful. Some of wool, some of cotton and wool, and some of silk. The smallest door mat sized ones started at $1,000. Delivered to your house of course. Larger ones were priced up to $50,000 and more. With 10 rooms filled with rugs, everyone different, I would guess his inventory easily in excess of 100 million dollars. Yes, they made at least 2 sales that I witnessed. In reality, if you were in the market for such a rug, you could easily save the cost of the cruise on the price of the rug if you bought it here as opposed to a showroom in the US.
The tour bus drops us off just outside the port so we must walk past another 50 shops before we can reach the ship. A standard tactic of many ports all around the world.
The passenger dynamics are entirely different on this cruise than the previous ones. Several very obnoxious and drunk passengers by 5pm, but in general a much smaller percentage of passengers drinking in the lounges.
A couple in the coastal kitchen insisting that the wine be poured from the bottle in front of them at the table as they did not trust the server. Yes, they told him so.
Passengers getting on an occupied elevator and cancelling all the buttons so the elevator will go directly to the deck they want. This was a new one for me, as I didn't know you could cancel a floor once activated. You can guess how I learned this one.
On formal night I played the game of counting baseball caps and suits or tuxedos. Ball caps won 5 to 1. I would have never anticipated this. Makes me happy I am at least dining in the Coastal Kitchen.
The grilled veal chop was excellent. After dinner several sets of The Dukes in Boleros. Again another contrast, there were seats available during all three sets.
The seas remain under 3 feet. For the next day and a half we will be cruising to Limassol, Cypress.
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