Zeus – Scribbles and Snapshots

Turkey, that’s my second favorite kind of poultry!

September 5, 2025Posted in Europe 2025, Spain, Malta, Greece, Turkey, Italy CruiseTagged adventure, Celebrity Cruises, celebritycruises, cruise, Ephesus, Europe, Kusadasi, Mediterranean, Mosaic, Roman Ruins, Romans, travel, travel blog, turkey, wonders of the world, Zeus1 Comment

September 4, 2025

Our third stop was Kusadasi, Turkey, which was a new country for me – but a revisit for Andy (due to his time in the Air Force). We had booked the “Ancient Ephesus” tour with the cruise line, which would take us a little bit inland to the ancient city. It was an earlier wake up for us, but well worth it!

Strolling through Ephesus feels like walking straight into a history book, only way sunnier and with a lot more cats (and a few dogs!). Once a major city of the Roman Empire, it was famous for its great theater, shiny marble streets, and the incredible Library of Celsus. Back in its day, Ephesus was buzzing with trade, politics, and worship at the Temple of Artemis which is one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

What makes Ephesus even more fascinating is its connection to the Bible. The apostle Paul spent years here, preaching and later writing the Letter to the Ephesians. It’s believed that the Virgin Mary lived out her final years nearby, cared for by the apostle John, who continued his ministry in this region. You can still visit Mary’s home, and the ruins of Temple of Artemis. Unfortunately our tour didn’t include these two as options, but if you are going – I’d recommend looking for these as add ons!

It was eventually abandoned as the river silted up and malaria spread through the area, leaving the once-great city to crumble. Today, archaeologists are still uncovering its secrets. They think only about 10% of the site has been excavated so far, making it a bit like Turkey’s own version of Pompeii, with more treasures waiting to be revealed. It was recognized as a UNCESO World Heritage Site in 2015.

Now for the fun part! We had an early start – and glad that we did because each port has been HOT. It hasn’t mattered if we start at 8 or at 12pm, it’s hot. But we were hoping that it would be less busy if we went early.

We were dropped off at one end of the valley and started working our way downhill. This city was incredibly advanced: wide marble streets, aqueduct system with fresh water, and an advanced sewage system.

A few of the major stunners in the valley though are the theaters (one of them could hold over 25,000!) and the Celsus Library, which is one of the third largest library in the ancient world. (Not to be confused with the second or fourth largest).

I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves – and let Andy take over. Because I think the captions might add more value at this point.

This is The Great Theater (almost 24k seating), they are restoring it for modern shows!

After we left Ephesus we went back into Kusadasi. Our tour brought us to a rug factory where they demonstrated how they gather silk from silk worms, and then they showed us how they make rugs. Of course, it’s a sales pitch. The couple next to us asked how much the smallest rug was – $1,300! Our guide had told us that we would get a group discount of 30%, so I tried to help them out and asked, “Is that with the 30%?” And the guy nodded, “Yes – that’s with the discount. Are you interested. Can I help you?!”

We said no and head downstairs to the other part of the store. Not that the rugs weren’t beautiful, just a bit out of our price range. I did buy some jewelry and a few other souvenirs at their shop.

We wandered around Kusadasi a bit more before returning to the cruise ship. It was a lovely town, it definitely had a resort feel. We were even surprised to see pine trees!

Up Next:
Santorini

Our first taste of Greece: Mykonos

September 3, 2025Posted in Europe 2025, Spain, Malta, Greece, Turkey, Italy CruiseTagged adventure, celebrity ascent, Celebrity Cruises, celebritycruises, cruise, Europe, foodie, greece, Mediterranean, Mediterranean Cruise, travel, travel blog, Zeus1 Comment

September 3, 2025

We arrived in Mykonos early today and were awoken by a ton of shaking. Not sure what the shaking was because we weren’t actually docked, (this is a tender port for us – which means they shuttle us back and forth to shore by smaller boats) but it was really windy. I guess Mykonos is notorious for being windy, but without the wind the heat would be unbearable. Honestly, it feels a bit like a hair dryer because it’s hot!

One of my favorite types of cuisines is Mediterranean, so we had booked a walking food tour while we were in Mykonos with Celebrity. It didn’t start until lunchtime so we took it easy in the morning and got ready at a leisurely pace.

We got there a little early, and walked around waiting for our guide to show up. Once Claudio did, we immediately knew that we were in good hands. We could tell that he carried himself with professionalism, was incredibly knowledgeable, and that he was well known with others in the industry.

And honestly, without him we would have gotten lost within the labyrinth that is the Mykonos maze. The maze was set up intentionally to confuse pirates that may have tried to invade to loot the town in the past. Now it just confuses tourists (including us) and makes for a fun adventure when you’re trying to find a shop that you spotted a cute sun dress in the window at earlier!

We had five different stops that included a variety of traditional Greek food and drink. The first stop was a bakery that had a Tiropitakia (cheese pie), which was something that the average Greek would grab when they were “on the go.”

Claudio also wanted to make sure he mixed in cultural stops too – so we stopped to see some windmills and “Little Venice.” It was a really picturesque area!

From there we had kebabs – some people in the group opted for gyros, which were the size of your head. Once we left that restaurant we reentered the maze. As we wove through the streets, we saw the interesting mix of high end stores (Louis Vuitton) with Mykonos branded mugs and keychains shops. And there were so many cats everywhere! Claudio taught us that cats are loved on the island because they help keep both the rodent and viper population under control, plus they’re cute!

The next couple of stops were a little quicker – the next was a sweet. It was called the “Ypovrichio.” The submarine – a rich white chewy sweet that is served on a spoon dipped in a long glass of crystal cold water. So that’s exactly what we did, we all stood outside a candy shop with our glass of water with these!

My 10-year old self would have killed for one of these. But it was a little too sweet for me now, but it was so fun to try!

From there, it was a quick walk over to our next stop where we had a shot of Ouzo and an appetizer plate with traditional Greek items that were all super tasty. The Ouzo was definitely an acquired taste – has a very strong licorice flavor (not my favorite). But, when in “Rome” in this case, Mykonos… bottoms up!

We rounded out the day at The Milky Way, our final stop for Greece’s spin at Turkish Delight and a sample of Mastiha (another one of their liqueurs). The restaurant was hopping so the server actually brought the glasses and the loukoumi out to us on the beach. Both were actually very good, and the liqueur was far tastier than the ouzo we had at the previous place.

After we finished those, we parted ways from Claudio and the rest of the group and made our way into the maze and started shopping. It was fun to drop into different shops, and window shop. But we didn’t leave with too many different things.

We made our way back to the ship with plenty of time because we wanted to make sure we didn’t get lost and left behind in the maze. (Although it might not have been the worst place to get stuck!)

Up Next:
Ephesus, Turkey

Jordan – Day 6 (Jerash)

March 30, 2024March 31, 2024Posted in Jordan, UncategorizedTagged Castles, Jerash, Jordan, Petra, Roman Ruins, Rome, Temples, ZeusLeave a comment

Friday we had a pretty early start, as we were cramming a lot into one day. We started with a very brief panoramic tour of Amman. In reality, we just drove to the Roman theater and took a quick picture. Up the hill, we could see the citadel. (I was hoping we would go up there as a group, but it wasn’t part of the agenda). We also drove by a beautiful blue mosque and a Coptic church.

From there, we made our way to the Ajlun castle, which was really neat! It was in really good condition. This castle was built to help defend against the crusaders. It was positioned on top of a hill, and could be seen from miles away.

As we were inside, we saw a very cute cat who was meowing quite a bit. It felt like she was trying to tell us something, and she quickly jumped into a large vase. Upon further inspection, we could see kittens! We aren’t sure if she was trying to ask us for help to get them out or warning us to stay back!

There was a lot to see and do. We quickly made our way to the top to take in the views – from there we went to the “post office” which was actually a rookery.

From there, we went to Jerash. Which is one of the largest and most well preserved sites of Roman architecture in the world – outside of Italy of course! It is an ancient city, and much of the reconstruction was done in the first century AD. By the third century, the city reached about 20,000 people. There was a slow decline in the city due to a variety of different events – crusades and natural disasters that left it deserted in the 13th century.

We toured part of the ruins as a group and at the end we were given about an hour to explore on our own. We could have easily used another 1-2 hours to explore in more detail.

Starting off as a group, we saw their hippodrome – where they would host different events. One of them being chariot racing – but there was also gladiator fighting, etc! There was a large oval plaza that had a ton of columns surrounding it. It was all so stunning to look at.

This is where the chariot races would take place

We also saw a theater – where there were locals who were performing with drums and a bagpipe. It was quite the spectacle. That theater was also able to fit about 3,000 people. It’s just crazy to think about how many people lived there in the past!

The group we spent the week with – view from the Temple of Zeus

It was so vast! You can see the plaza in the background – Jerash is known as the city of 1,000 Columns

We walked a bit further as a group, but then broke off. Andy and I ran ahead to look at the mosaic floors left from a church. It’s mind blowing to know that these tiles are so OLD and exposed to the elements and they were still in incredible condition!

I believe these were in the Church of John the Baptist

We then made our way to the Temple of Artemis – this was one of the Crown Jewels – as you could see its large pillars from far away. Our next stop was the north theater, which actually made the first theater look small. The tile was more intricate – and it was just a stunning structure.

Because it was a bit of a walk to get here, we had the place to ourselves!

We knew we were running out of time – but we could see a gate in the distance so we decided to see if we could make it over there to get a few pictures. We had that whole section to ourselves! It reminded us a lot of the Roman forum, but far less busy!

The giant pillars from the Temple of Artemis

You could see a structure that used to be a fountain, I’m sure it was incredible during its time. This was along the Cardo, which was the Main Street. This is where the hustle and bustle took place in the city.

It must have been a sight to see when it was a bustling city

It was easy to feel so small! You can see a bit of difference in the color of the columns due to how buried in sand some of them were!

We made it back to the group right on time and even had enough time to grab a freshly squeezed pomegranate juice.

We returned to the hotel and hung out for a bit before heading to another hotel that actually was serving wine during Ramadan. It was a short walk, so quite a few people from our group ended up there as well.

Because it is Ramadan, the hotel was putting together special banquets in the evenings. There was a lot more food from when we stayed at this hotel on the front end of our trip. We called it an early evening because we knew we had a busy day following.

Hotel:

Hotel Gerasa (Amman)

Up Next:

Desert castles

Dead Sea