Day 6, Selçuk & St. John Church
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This is our last day here and we’ve seen four amazing things today:
1) A baby owl in broad daylight.
2) A man trying to sell us fake antique coins in the ruins of St. John’s Church.
3) I found a human vertebra beside the baptistery in the ruins.
We saw a Turkish circumcision procession outside our hotel, a bunch of men banging out rhythms on drums, accompanied by a clarinet.
We went to the ruins of St. John’s Cathedral right after breakfast. We took pictures of the Persecution Gate, archaeological remnants with the Cross of St. John on them and the ruins of the baptistery. We also took a picture of his grave among the ruins. Strange, but I felt more reverent amongst the ruins of this ancient cathedral than I ever have in a huge, elaborate cathedrals with ornate art, stained glass windows, gold and silver.
Just for the air conditioning and the free tea, we went and haggled with some carpet dealers. One guy outside St. John’s at Sultan Carpets was fairly good. Geo is impressed with my bargaining style. After about an hour we selected a kelm pillow bag, that I really like.
We took a “stuffed” bus to the village of Söke for the afternoon. It was an incredibly quaint Turkish village, where the locals made and sold their own white wine. Everyone was selling it on every corner. There were market stalls with lace, silk, embroidery, jewelery and herbs lining several streets. We wondered and took pictures of interesting houses and structures, goats in people’s back yards, old men and donkeys and anything else of interest.
We ate at a little place where a little old Turkish lady rolled out pancakes over a wood burning pit. They were filled with spicy eggplant and served to us, they were delicious. After this we caught the last bus back to Selçuk.
We went to a fantastic tea garden behind St. John’s hill. You sat on carpet pillows with low tables and terraces and fountains. Incidentally the tea garden included an odd little zoo with birds, rabbits, monkeys and dogs.
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