Selcuk

The weather is good today. It rained a little bit so it is not very hot. After Ephesus I brought them back to the hotel. They weren't interested to go to Sirince (which is a village founded by Greeks. The Greeks they left with the population exchange in 1921-23 and now Turks live in this village). Maybe they are villaged out. Last week we spent a night at a village next to Beysehir Lake with a family and a couple of days ago I stopped at another village near a Lycian city called Pinara for lunch. But this one is different with their white Greek houses and fruit wines. Yes they do fruit wines here. Strawberry, apple, peach, mandarin, blackberry, etc... flavored fruit wines. And I believe the best Turkish pancakes with eggplant. The food is yumm at the village. A friend of mine has a place and even from Izmir people come to eat liver at his place. Ohhh come on. maybe you don't like liver but there are tons of people loves it. I like it too. I had the best one at his place. He is also famous with the different coffee and the cookies that he serves with the coffee. Nooo these are not the reason why he is a good friend of mine :) He is also a very nice person to talk to.

There are some more nice restaurant with a beautiful view of the village which serve yummy starters prepared by the local herbs and olive oil. The people at the Aegean eat all kinds of herbs and grass :) They boil them, roast them and put olive oil, lemon and spices and TAaa tAAaaaa the best and the healthiest starter. These starters go very good with Raki (a Turkish spirit with 45% alcohol)
Soooo yes my group don't know what they are missing. But I took half of them to a Turkish pizza restaurant in the town. He makes the best pizzas in Turkey. Soooo yumm. Of course they loved it. They might go again tonight.

6-7 of them were planning to go to the museum. It is one of the musts in Selcuk. It is only 5 TL and takes 1 hour to see everything. The Artemis Statue makes the museum very special. I think some of them went to see St. John Basilica which is also 5TL. But the mosque which is after the basilica is worth seeing. It is called Isabey Mosque from 14th century. It is an asymmetric building which is not usual for a temple. Also because they recycled the stones of Artemis Temple (which is one of the wonders of ancient world and nothing left to seeL) to build this mosque, there are some pagan reliefs on the walls. Interesting, right? They weren’t carved out by the people who built the mosque because they had the respect to the person who made that relief.

They are free tonight. They can survive. It is not that wild town here. I have to go also because I am invited to a dinner. Guess what they will cook: Salicornia. I told you that they cook all kind of grass here. I tell you how it is tomorrow. Also about the group too.

The tip of the day: Always check or ask the prices first before you go in to a restaurant.