"Ephesus" Ephesus by June.b

Home to one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World - The Temple of Artemis - the largest building structure in the ancient world, which is almost invisible already, saved for some remnants piled up together to form a column.

The Ancient City of Ephesus offer a lot of sights to marvel on. If you're a history geek, or you're into old rocks that used to form historical edifices or structures, or into ruins - you'll find Ephesus to be a haven.

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Ancient city of Ephesus

We started our Ephesus tour with the cave of Seven Sleepers, admission is free, just a small enclave on a hill just at the side of the main walking trail of Ephesus.

The House of the Virgin Mary is perched on top of the mountain on a landscaped environment with flowers and bushes and trees, I even saw some squirrels jumping around the trees. Entrance is TL10.

Then we went down to the main Ephesus walking trail. It's a one to two or maybe three hours walking feat until you reached the end of the trail. Many interesting ruins, the Library of Celsius is the most intact and still proudly standing as well as the Temple of Hadrian.

Covered in a modern structure and for a separate admission fee of TL10 is the Slope Houses. Located just before you reach Celsius Library it's on your left. Occupied from the 1st century to 7th century AD, the Slope Houses have been compared to the 1st century villas of Pompeii in importance.
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The Theater

Ephesus are not only rocks & ruins, the views and scenes at and of the mountains are fantastic, specially if you're descending down from the House of Virgin Mary, you should stop for awhile near the large statue of Virgin Mary and marvel at the sight down below.

Our taxi driver informed us that some months back there was a huge fire in the forest that gutted most of the vegetation in a large portion of the forest near the House of the Virgin Mary, in fact, you can still notice the bald area of the mountain.

But some concerned groups including foreign entities (I think it's the Japanese) started planting new trees in the area to replenish what has been damaged by the fire.
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