Selcuk Explorations

This morning, we hopped into taxi's to visit the House of the Virgin Mary. According to the Bible and other writings, it was believed that she moved to then Ephesus with St John the apostle. There's an entrance fee and it actually goes to the town of Selcuk, so we made donations and lit candles to help with the upkeep of the site. St John himself is buried in the basilica named after him in today's Selcuk itself.

From Mary's house, we drove back passing the Cave of the Seven Sleepers, where legend has it that several Christians were trapped in a cave because the ruler wanted to silence them for their religion, but they fell asleep instead and years later when the rock to the cave entrance was removed, they awoke and didn't realize time had passed.

We got dropped off at St John's Basilica, I didn't realize it was ruins, thinking it was an actual basilica. The locals really loved St John, and it's said that had there not been geographic limitations, the basilica would've been even larger.

Just steps down the road is the Isa Bey Mosque. There weren't a lot of visitors so we mostly had it to ourselves. Outside an older gentlemen and his son run 2 souvenir stands. The older gentlemen worked for the mosque for many years and told us about its transformations over the years.

Back in town, we grabbed an early lunch before meeting our group for our afternoon Ephesus tour.Read more