Our trip started in Istanbul, but we immediately left in a rental car and headed along the West coast southward. This took 3 days of our trip (this post is about the first 3 days) and over 400 miles. I immediately felt a little bit of pain when we arrived. We got our rental car which was almost on empty. We filled up our gas tank before beginning our trip and it cost nearly 100 dollars! It hurt so much that a part of me died inside. It only costs me 3 dollars to completely fill a gas tank in Saudi Arabia.
The above picture was what we saw for most of our driving. It was beautiful and green with many rolling hills and very nice clean little towns. About an hour into driving we discovered we were going Northwest instead of Southwest....we added a bit of time to our first days journey due to that little mistake! Be careful when using internet map directions, especially when gas is 11 dollars a gallon! We headed to the coast but we needed to cross a bit of water, the Dardanelles. Because there is no bridge they have a ferry boat that takes cars and buses across the water.
Above is a picture of our ferry boat. We found it in Eceabat Turkey and it took us to Cannakale Turkey. Did you know that part of Turkey is in Europe and part is in Asia? This was my very first day in Europe but we quickly drove our car on the boat and took a 20-30 minute boat ride back to Asia.Here I am on the boat. It was a pretty nice ride. I'd never been on a ferry like this before.
Goodbye Turkish Europe!
Hello Turkish Asia!
A short drive out of Cannakale and we arrived at our first stop Troia, or Truva, but you may know it as the city of Troy from Homer's epic, The Iliad. For those who have studied history I think it would be impossible to overestimate the importance of Homer's Iliad throughout the past thousands of years. I studied this in college so it was very cool to visit the actual site.
Above is a wooden horse meant to represent the Trojan horse. The Greeks were finally able to win the 10 year war against Troy by building a wooden horse and hiding inside it. The people of Troy took the horse into their city and when night came the Greeks took over the place and destroyed the city. We got to climb inside this horse.
The site of Troy is actually many different cities over time. When one Troy was destroyed, people would come and build a new city on top of it. If I remember right there are seven or eight Troys here all built on top of the other (which is the case for many ancient cities including Jerusalem) There isn't much left, but above are the ancient walls of the city.
Me in front of the walls. Why did the battle of Troy start? The stories say that 3 goddesses came to Paris and asked him to tell them who was the most beautiful. Paris chose the goddess Aphrodite which enraged the other two. Aphrodite gave him the most beautiful woman, Hellen, because of his choice (but she belonged to another man). Hellen's people made war against Paris and his city, Troy, and the two angry goddesses helped them in this battle. Which is a lesson to us not to be judges in a goddess beauty contest. They get insanely jealous apparently.
This ancient rock I'm standing next to was once the ceiling of a Pagan god in the city of Troy.
Above is an altar to a pagan god in the city of Troy.
The theater area of Troy. Even though the Trojan War was 10 years, Homer's work, the Iliad only covers 4 days of the 10th year of the war dealing with Achilles and his rage. Its an interesting read and had major influence on authors from many cultures all the way up to the present day.
Revelation 2:12-17 gives John's full message to the people of this ancient city. He calls this place the seat of Satan. Some scholars think it is because of the picture above. I'm standing in front of what was an ancient pagan temple. There is a hole in the altar where the false god statue stood behind me. Some scholars believe that the priests would hide under the altar and speak to the people as if they were god. Thus "the seat of Satan". When Christianity took root here later, the Christians built a beautiful church over the temple behind me and it is called the Red Basillica. It stands in ruins today but is still an awesome site to visit.
This is a picture of the front of the Red Basillica. Quite the site. It stood at the base of the mountain where the Roman acropolis was.
I bought a new camera for this trip. My new camera takes panoramic photos. In order to see the above picture better just click on it to enlarge (you can click on all the pictures to make them bigger). This is a view from the Roman acropolis and a view of the modern city of Bergama. Its a very nice little city and it is where we stayed our first night of the trip.
Here I am standing on top of the acropolis of Pergamos. The stones on the left were either a part of the ancient walls or an ancient building that used to exist there.
We found a turtle while exploring the acropolis. It peed on Chris' hand when I took this picture.
More Roman ruins of Pergamos.
Me looking at the temple of the Roman Emperor Trajan. Romans believe their emperors were gods.
Another panormaic. This is from the top of the acropolis. You can see the theater of Pergamos to the left and the city of Bergama below. The view from the top was incredible. I hope you like the pictures, but they really don't do the place justice. Plus the weather was incredible.
"Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God" Rev 3:12. Here is Chris standing like a pillar. This is one of the promises God makes to the people of Pergamos if they remain faithful.
A view of the Red Basillica from above and the city of Bergama.
A panoramic of Bergama with the acropolis hill on the left side. This was such a cool little city! When we finished our time in Bergama it was the afternoon of our 2nd day in Turkey. We began our drive to Izmir, Turkey's 3rd largest city and the site of the ancient city of Smyrna, another one of the seven churches that John addresses in the book of Revelation. After being lost in the city for an hour we finally found where we were going. Izmir is huge.
Above is the Agora (market place) of Smyrna. This city is incredibly old but what you see above is about all that exists of the ancient city. The modern (and HUGE) city of Izmir was built on top of the ancient site. Revelation 2:8-11 covers what John wrote to the Christians of this city. Apparently some of the Jews in this city were persecuting the Christians here. John tells them to be faithful and they will be given a crown of life.
Almost immediately when we arrived at the Agora of Smyrna it started raining cats and dogs. We had to hide under a building for 20 minutes so we didn't get soaked (we kind of did anyway).
Hiding from the rain with the ruins of Smyrna behind me. This part of the city is on the slope of a hill. While we waited for the rain to stop the streets started to flood. We counted 20 + water melons floating down the street. Some poor merchant needs to be more careful!
After it rained we walked around the city. We passed this shop and bought some Turkish delight as shown in the picture above. Ever since I read the Chronicles of Narnia I always wondered what Turkish delight was. Its like a gummy kind of cube covered in powdered sugar and sometimes it has nuts. It is actually very very good. I ate a ton while I was in Turkey. We also saw the movie Fast Five while we were in Izmir. We stayed our second night in Izmir at the Otel Saray and the next morning we drove to Ephesus about an hour away.
Read about the Christians in this city in Revelation 2:1-7. The people here are commended for their faith and patience. They are promised to eat of the tree of life if they are faithful to the end. This city is incredible. Only 18% of this city has been excavated which makes me think it must have been huge. Chris and I spent many hours here.
They do a little Roman show, a gladiator fight, for the tourists who visit this city. It was pretty cool.
Here is the beautiful landscape of the city of Ephesus. Paul would have seen this landscape for years as he lived in this city.
Behind Chris and I is the library at Ephesus. If I remember right it dates back to the 1st or 2nd century AD. Ephesus had the 3rd largest library in the Roman Empire, Pergamos had the 2nd.
A view of the Library. Obviously there is more that doesn't exist today because this was a building, not just a wall looking like the facade of a building.
I thought this was hilarious. These are ancient toilets. This building was only for the rich of the city. You could only come here and go to the bathroom if you were well connected. The guys would just sit cheek to cheek here and chat it up. It was seen as a great thing! Very funny.
Here I am sitting on the ancient toilets where all the great men of Ephesus would go to the bathroom. I feel so honored to sit where they sat.
If you were rich the houses of Ephesus actually had water pipes that drained things from your home. Pretty incredible for ancient peoples.
This was amazing. They exacavated and restored what they could of the rich neighborhood of Ephesus. You are looking at actual disigns on the walls of peoples homes from 2000 years ago.
The rich people would have beautiful mosaics of famous people and gods on the walls of their homes. One of the houses had a mosaic of Socrates.
Looking inside one of the ancient homes.
A bigger view of Ephesus.
A panoramic of Ephesus from one of the two theaters there. Everyone should go visit Ephesus. It is truly incredible.
In the above picture is the city of Selcuk the modern city near Ephesus. You can see a castle on the hill in the background.
Above is called the grotto of the seven sleepers. This is a hill not far from Ephesus. The story goes that 7 Christians were being persecuted for their belief in God. They hid in a cave and fell asleep. When they awoke it was 200 years later and when they entered Ephesus everyone believed in God there. Everyone was amazed by this miracle and when the 7 died they were buried in the same place they slept for 200 years (above). This story is also found in the Qu'ran. 
Near Ephesus. This is the site of the temple of Artemis. The one pillar behind me is all that remains of the temple, it was one of the 7 ancient wonders of the world. Too bad its gone, it must have been incredible.
A statue of the goddess Artemis at the museum in Selcuk.
After our time at Ephesus we drove back to Izmir for our last night. We spent some time exploring the city. For some reason Izmir (Smyrna) has this random man cut into the mountain. I don't know who it is.
At the top of the mountain in Izmir there is a place called the Velvet Palace which offers an incredible view of Izmir.
Izmir with the flag of Turkey waving in the wind.
Click to enlarge. The city looks big but this is only a small fraction of Izmir. However, this picture should cover most of the ground on which the ancient city of Smyna was. These were our first 3 days in Turkey. I was happy that time seemed to be going slow, great and slow. We'd already seen so much by this point. It was cool to walk to sites of 3 of the seven churches of Revelation and visit the city where Paul lived. I couldn't believe I was doing it! I hope this wasn't boring. I made this post larger but hope to make the remaining posts about Turkey smaller. As far as our vacation went the best was yet to come.
Goodbye Turkish Europe!
Hello Turkish Asia!
A short drive out of Cannakale and we arrived at our first stop Troia, or Truva, but you may know it as the city of Troy from Homer's epic, The Iliad. For those who have studied history I think it would be impossible to overestimate the importance of Homer's Iliad throughout the past thousands of years. I studied this in college so it was very cool to visit the actual site.
Above is a wooden horse meant to represent the Trojan horse. The Greeks were finally able to win the 10 year war against Troy by building a wooden horse and hiding inside it. The people of Troy took the horse into their city and when night came the Greeks took over the place and destroyed the city. We got to climb inside this horse.
The site of Troy is actually many different cities over time. When one Troy was destroyed, people would come and build a new city on top of it. If I remember right there are seven or eight Troys here all built on top of the other (which is the case for many ancient cities including Jerusalem) There isn't much left, but above are the ancient walls of the city.
Me in front of the walls. Why did the battle of Troy start? The stories say that 3 goddesses came to Paris and asked him to tell them who was the most beautiful. Paris chose the goddess Aphrodite which enraged the other two. Aphrodite gave him the most beautiful woman, Hellen, because of his choice (but she belonged to another man). Hellen's people made war against Paris and his city, Troy, and the two angry goddesses helped them in this battle. Which is a lesson to us not to be judges in a goddess beauty contest. They get insanely jealous apparently.
This ancient rock I'm standing next to was once the ceiling of a Pagan god in the city of Troy.
Above is an altar to a pagan god in the city of Troy.
The theater area of Troy. Even though the Trojan War was 10 years, Homer's work, the Iliad only covers 4 days of the 10th year of the war dealing with Achilles and his rage. Its an interesting read and had major influence on authors from many cultures all the way up to the present day.We continued South along the coast for a few more hours before reaching our final destination for our first day, Bergama. We drove for 8 hours that first day (the most we would drive the entire trip). The city of Bergama is actually the ancient city of Pergamum. Pergamum aka Pergamos is one of the seven cities addressed in the Book of Revelation in the Bible. When John wrote the Revelation he was on the Greek island of Patmos. He address the book to seven churches giving them counsel (and a little chastisement to all of them, as well as blessings for those who remained faithful to the end). There was a group of Christians at this city and it is likely a few of the original apostles made a stop here.
Revelation 2:12-17 gives John's full message to the people of this ancient city. He calls this place the seat of Satan. Some scholars think it is because of the picture above. I'm standing in front of what was an ancient pagan temple. There is a hole in the altar where the false god statue stood behind me. Some scholars believe that the priests would hide under the altar and speak to the people as if they were god. Thus "the seat of Satan". When Christianity took root here later, the Christians built a beautiful church over the temple behind me and it is called the Red Basillica. It stands in ruins today but is still an awesome site to visit.
This is a picture of the front of the Red Basillica. Quite the site. It stood at the base of the mountain where the Roman acropolis was.
I bought a new camera for this trip. My new camera takes panoramic photos. In order to see the above picture better just click on it to enlarge (you can click on all the pictures to make them bigger). This is a view from the Roman acropolis and a view of the modern city of Bergama. Its a very nice little city and it is where we stayed our first night of the trip.
Here I am standing on top of the acropolis of Pergamos. The stones on the left were either a part of the ancient walls or an ancient building that used to exist there.
We found a turtle while exploring the acropolis. It peed on Chris' hand when I took this picture.
More Roman ruins of Pergamos.
Me looking at the temple of the Roman Emperor Trajan. Romans believe their emperors were gods.
Another panormaic. This is from the top of the acropolis. You can see the theater of Pergamos to the left and the city of Bergama below. The view from the top was incredible. I hope you like the pictures, but they really don't do the place justice. Plus the weather was incredible.
"Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God" Rev 3:12. Here is Chris standing like a pillar. This is one of the promises God makes to the people of Pergamos if they remain faithful.
A view of the Red Basillica from above and the city of Bergama.
A panoramic of Bergama with the acropolis hill on the left side. This was such a cool little city! When we finished our time in Bergama it was the afternoon of our 2nd day in Turkey. We began our drive to Izmir, Turkey's 3rd largest city and the site of the ancient city of Smyrna, another one of the seven churches that John addresses in the book of Revelation. After being lost in the city for an hour we finally found where we were going. Izmir is huge.
Above is the Agora (market place) of Smyrna. This city is incredibly old but what you see above is about all that exists of the ancient city. The modern (and HUGE) city of Izmir was built on top of the ancient site. Revelation 2:8-11 covers what John wrote to the Christians of this city. Apparently some of the Jews in this city were persecuting the Christians here. John tells them to be faithful and they will be given a crown of life.
Almost immediately when we arrived at the Agora of Smyrna it started raining cats and dogs. We had to hide under a building for 20 minutes so we didn't get soaked (we kind of did anyway).
Hiding from the rain with the ruins of Smyrna behind me. This part of the city is on the slope of a hill. While we waited for the rain to stop the streets started to flood. We counted 20 + water melons floating down the street. Some poor merchant needs to be more careful!
After it rained we walked around the city. We passed this shop and bought some Turkish delight as shown in the picture above. Ever since I read the Chronicles of Narnia I always wondered what Turkish delight was. Its like a gummy kind of cube covered in powdered sugar and sometimes it has nuts. It is actually very very good. I ate a ton while I was in Turkey. We also saw the movie Fast Five while we were in Izmir. We stayed our second night in Izmir at the Otel Saray and the next morning we drove to Ephesus about an hour away.Below I am standing in the Theater at Ephesus! I've always wanted to come to this city. This place is famous for a few reasons. It was the second biggest city in the Roman Empire with a population of 250,000. It was here that the apostle Paul lived for 2-3 years while he taught the Christians of this city. It is also the place that the book of Ephesians is addressed to in the Bible. Biblical scholars think that the apostle John wrote the book of John here AND it is also one of the seven churches addressed in the Book of Revelation.
Read about the Christians in this city in Revelation 2:1-7. The people here are commended for their faith and patience. They are promised to eat of the tree of life if they are faithful to the end. This city is incredible. Only 18% of this city has been excavated which makes me think it must have been huge. Chris and I spent many hours here.
They do a little Roman show, a gladiator fight, for the tourists who visit this city. It was pretty cool.
Here is the beautiful landscape of the city of Ephesus. Paul would have seen this landscape for years as he lived in this city.
Behind Chris and I is the library at Ephesus. If I remember right it dates back to the 1st or 2nd century AD. Ephesus had the 3rd largest library in the Roman Empire, Pergamos had the 2nd.
A view of the Library. Obviously there is more that doesn't exist today because this was a building, not just a wall looking like the facade of a building.
I thought this was hilarious. These are ancient toilets. This building was only for the rich of the city. You could only come here and go to the bathroom if you were well connected. The guys would just sit cheek to cheek here and chat it up. It was seen as a great thing! Very funny.
Here I am sitting on the ancient toilets where all the great men of Ephesus would go to the bathroom. I feel so honored to sit where they sat.
If you were rich the houses of Ephesus actually had water pipes that drained things from your home. Pretty incredible for ancient peoples.
This was amazing. They exacavated and restored what they could of the rich neighborhood of Ephesus. You are looking at actual disigns on the walls of peoples homes from 2000 years ago.
The rich people would have beautiful mosaics of famous people and gods on the walls of their homes. One of the houses had a mosaic of Socrates.
Looking inside one of the ancient homes.
A bigger view of Ephesus.
A panoramic of Ephesus from one of the two theaters there. Everyone should go visit Ephesus. It is truly incredible.
In the above picture is the city of Selcuk the modern city near Ephesus. You can see a castle on the hill in the background.
Above is called the grotto of the seven sleepers. This is a hill not far from Ephesus. The story goes that 7 Christians were being persecuted for their belief in God. They hid in a cave and fell asleep. When they awoke it was 200 years later and when they entered Ephesus everyone believed in God there. Everyone was amazed by this miracle and when the 7 died they were buried in the same place they slept for 200 years (above). This story is also found in the Qu'ran. 
Near Ephesus. This is the site of the temple of Artemis. The one pillar behind me is all that remains of the temple, it was one of the 7 ancient wonders of the world. Too bad its gone, it must have been incredible.
A statue of the goddess Artemis at the museum in Selcuk.
After our time at Ephesus we drove back to Izmir for our last night. We spent some time exploring the city. For some reason Izmir (Smyrna) has this random man cut into the mountain. I don't know who it is.
At the top of the mountain in Izmir there is a place called the Velvet Palace which offers an incredible view of Izmir.
Izmir with the flag of Turkey waving in the wind.
Click to enlarge. The city looks big but this is only a small fraction of Izmir. However, this picture should cover most of the ground on which the ancient city of Smyna was. These were our first 3 days in Turkey. I was happy that time seemed to be going slow, great and slow. We'd already seen so much by this point. It was cool to walk to sites of 3 of the seven churches of Revelation and visit the city where Paul lived. I couldn't believe I was doing it! I hope this wasn't boring. I made this post larger but hope to make the remaining posts about Turkey smaller. As far as our vacation went the best was yet to come.
This is one of my favorites. "Angelical Beauty." See below for a close up.
