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Wall of St John's Church Compound

Selçuk is the closest Turkish town to the ancient Graeco-Roman site of Ephesus. Most visitors to the ruins come from the coastal resorts of Bodrum and Kusadasi, but we preferred to be a little closer and so have a complete day at the site, which we did. But our stay was not limited to Ephesus. We found a hotel with a very small, but very new and clean room, a pleasant courtyard for breakfast, and a good location a short walk from the town center with all of its restaurants serving good Turkish food.

We spent a very pleasant half day wandering around the site of St John's Church. Now only ruins, the church attracts lots of Christian groups. We no longer remember its history, but it revolves around some kind of miracle occurring here. You can look it up at http://www.kusadasi.com/stjohnchurch.html

Storks Nesting on top of Aqueduct Remains

Perhaps Selçuk is most memorable for the subject of the picture at right. It may not have been here, but somewhere around this time in Turkey we became aware of the existence of storks nesting on the top of pretty much any high, island-like structure. Most often it was on the top of telephone poles strung out along the highway, but here in Selçuk their preferred nesting sites were on the top of the uprights from the ruined acqueduct arches which ran through the center of town. We were intrigued by them and craned (storked?) our necks to try and catch sight of the young in the nest, usually with no success. We need not have worried. We saw storks for the next two months as we moved north along Turkey's Aegean coast and on into Bulgaria, Romania, and Ukraine and yes, eventually we even saw one or two young birds in the nest.

Old Mosque in Selçuk

Another pleasant morning was spent visiting an old mosque and its lovely gardens. We had always expected to visit Istanbul again and thought that there we would soak up more of Turkey's islamic culture, but in fact we skipped it and so spent most of our time in Turkey concentrating on its pre-islamic history. The exception was here in Selçuk where we quite enjoyed renewing our acquaintance (from Iran days) with the art and architecture associated with the mosque.

The Harbor at Kusadasi

Our only trip out of Selçuk was to reverse the trip made by so many package tourists — we went to Kusadasi. The photo shows the harbor there with a big cruise ship docked. We spent a pleasant few hours, walking up to the old fort, like Alanya's on the top of a hill on a rocky peninsula. We also wandered the shopping streets for a half hour and Jan even let herself be tempted by a silk scarf. We ate a nice lunch at a waterfront restaurant and watched the other tourists watching us. On the whole, though, we were happy to go back to quiet, little Selçuk.

http://www.kusadasi.com