This was our last day in Izmir. We were going to tackle three ancient cities; Pirene, Miletus and Didyma. To tell the truth, I have never heard about these three cities before planning the trip but, our agency suggested it. Once I did some research, I found that they all looked fascinating. When we were picked up, I was quite happy to see that we were going to be in small group, small bus and a more intimate group. Our guide today was a young girl which made me think about our lovely guide back in Cappadocia. However, once we were getting close to our first destination, Priene, we noticed something difference about her. Normal guide would start telling us about the history and places that we were going. However, what she did was just inform us about our itinerary. Then, she READ the description and history of the place from a paper. I thought that maybe her English wasn't good so, she needed some help with explaining. Disappointingly, once we were at the sight, she only pointed us the way, told us the time to meet and walked around on her own. So, basically, we didn't have a guide but merely an escort. The places that we went were great but, we were missing important things when visiting these historical sights. We needed some explanation and some insights about the place. We had none of it. Sometimes I even eavesdropped on other tour groups. Anyway, about our first destination, Priene is an ancient Greek city which dated back to around 500s BC. What was left now was a part of the rebuilding in 300s century BC, after the place was destroyed by Persians. In 129 BC, Priene became a part of Roman and it developed to be a model city in terms of city lay out. Priene was divided into grids unlike some other ancient cities that I have been to which got streets as curvy as snakes. They also got designated area for residence.
When we arrived, the driver dropped us off at the based of the hill which was also the parking lot. I was intimidated by the height of the mountain above....do I really have to climb the mountain, I wondered?!? 
Well, the answer was yes and no. We did have quite a long way up but, we didn't have to climb all the way up.
It's said that once the city became part of Turkey, it started to decline until it was abandoned entirely around 13th century AD. Several hundred years later and this was all left of the city.
At least someone or something was still living here. This lizard was like a king of the castle, like a host came out to greet visitors.
A grand structure that has somewhat survived the time was the theatre with its stage, seating and even a armchair seats with lion paws armrest for nobles perhaps.
When it was time, we gathered at the parking lot to go to the next destination. Once everyone was ready, we were off to Miletus. After being in the bus for sometimes, we arrived at the ancient site. Miletus dated back to 1400 BC and it was one of the most important cities in the ancient world. It was difficult to comprehend that this was once a very lively port city because there was no water in sight. Actually, Miletus used to be located at the mouth of river Meander. However, as time passed, the river got silted up until the city became a normal inland city and that was when it started to decline. We first went to explore its theatre which was the first thing we saw. The theatre was huge and very difficult to get all in the photo.
On the way to the theatre, we passed a field of ancient rubbles. These probably came from the theatre itself. It was rocks carved with different decorated pattern.
The closer we got to the theatre, the smaller I felt. I read on the net that this theatre could accommodate 25,000 spectators, no wonder. Standing at the stage area, it would have been quite overwhelm to perform for such large crowd. The applauds and cheering would have been deafening, just imagining.
We moved up to the seating area. The seating was incredibly low. I just thought that it didn't look to comfy at all. The seating weren't just simple rocks putting together, they did a little decoration with tiger foot carving at the bottom.
From the top, we could get a feel of being a part of the spectators. We could see all the theatre area as well as having a great view of the surrounding.
Exploring further, at the back of the theatre, there was a field of greens, flowers as well as ruins. It somehow had a feel of serenity. The flowers, don't know what kind, had a little of ancient look and it was pretty prickly. I touched one and it drew blood...a cruel beauty.
Looking around, we realized that there was more in this area than just this theatre. So, enough of the view, we had much more to go through.
We quickly climbed down and walked to the right of the theatre, following a dirt path. not too far away, we found the Bath of Faustina. That was a large bath.
On the inside, there was the great hall of warm bath which was supposedly warmed through a channel from underground. It must be very really grand when it was still intact. Unfortunately, an indoor warm bath now became an open air bath with the collapsed ceiling.
There was warm bath, now we were seeing the cold bath. From the picture, it looked like a very luxury indoor swimming pool with statues of river God as well a lion fountain. Too bad that the actual statues were in museum. What we saw were just copies.
We didn't have much time, not enough for such a large area. There were a few places that we hadn't seen but, we were running out of time. So, we made our way out and back to our bus.
Once again, we ran into a problem with missing person. This was the second time on this Turkey trip. Two ladies from our group were missing. I do understand that, with the large area and multitude of the things to explore, it was easy to get carry away. But still, watch your time please. We ended up picking them up on the way out. Then, we had another ride to get to our last stop but first, we needed to stop for lunch. Our escort told us that the restaurant was close to our destination. The lunch was the same as others here. Then, we had a short drive to the last destination, Didyma. This city was a very sacred ancient city as it had the Temple of Apollo (which we were going to see) as well as famous Oracle. It's said that the design of this temple mirror that of Temple of Artemis in Ephesus (since Apollo and Artemis were twins). Does it mean we could picture the Temple of Artemis to be like this? The obvious thing is that this temple fare much better than the Temple of Artemis. At least there were many more columns and stones left here. Walking around to get to the entrance, we could see the immense size of the temple...amazing! 
There were 122 huge columns in this place. I mean we could see that there were a lot but, I didn't imagine it be more than a hundred. These columns probably took more than three men to encircle.
Before approaching the temple, we looked around for different stone carvings. We saw Medusa, lion as well as, I think, the top part of a column with carving of cow and wings, maybe some mythical creature.
Finally, we got to the front and faced the temple. It was enormous. From where we stood, the tourists was like a dwarf or ant compared to the temple size and we weren't even close to the stair yet.
At the bottom of the stair, looking up, it felt like we were entering the house of God. Have you seen the movie; Percy Jackson? When he entered Olympus and saw gigantic Gods & Goddesses, that felt like it. The closer we got, the smaller and tinier I felt.
Each column got its own carving design at the base. They all looked very classy but, why all different? The artists got bored or got so many inspirations?
The interior was a great hall which supposedly was a roofed area. From the height of the wall, the roof must be super high. I would love to be on a time machine and travel back through time to see during its high time. The embarrassing thing was, after taking this picture, I tried to get down this stair and my legs were shaken. Going up was easy, it didn't feel like so high. However, because the steps were kind of steep. When I looked down, I kind of felt that I would fell over...usually I'm not afraid of high though.
A couple last looks at the temple...love it.
As mentioned, this was our last destination. We were taken back to Selcuk and got dropped of at the travel agent. They had arranged a van to take us to the airport however, there were other people from other tours who needed to go to airport too so, we had to wait for them. We got a little restless because we knew that we had a long ride ahead. We wanted to go now but, the agent assured us that we would be there on time. We had to hang around for about an hour until the other group arrived and we could be on our way.
From Izmir, we took a flight back to Istanbul. We arrived back around 9pm and took taxi to our hotel. We didn't stay at Hotel Alzer like earlier in the trip. I just wanted to experience something new. So, I booked another hotel which is on the tram path, not too far from Hagia Sophia. The hotel was Boutique Amisos Hotel (http://www.amisoshotel.com/). I chose this one first from the location and second for its very cute room. Each of Amisos rooms are unique in design and have different name. Ours was called Superior Jasmine. Strangely, the tone of this room is red, white and gold. I would thought that Jasmine room would be in lighter color.
We didn't go anywhere that night even though we only had a sandwich on the plane for dinner. Actually, I was thinking about going out but, once we got to the hotel, the laziness started to take over us and we decided to just go to bed. We would have more chance to hang around tomorrow as our flight back home was in the evening.
The next morning, we had our breakfast at the hotel, typical for Istanbul hotel, no fresh cooked eggs. Despite that, this hotel offered more than the one we had at Hotel Alzer in terms of more protein like ham. Even better, it had cheese pastry which was our favorite from the time we were at Cappadocia. Having cheese pastry with honey or jam was wonderful. The waitress was very friendly. I think we were the last guests to come to breakfast so, she had time to chat with us. Her English wasn't good and I did have a little had time understand her but, she didn't let it to be the barrier. She even came to our table to talk. Or maybe she was lonely...anyway, she was very warm and friendly. Our agenda for that day was to shop for gifts. For this, we head to the Spice Bazaar. I already had some idea of what to bring home; souvenir for friends, pistachio for my Dad and siblings, tea and spices for myself. It was quite difficult to choose which shop to go in because there were many shops selling the same thing. Since we didn't have any guidance, we just selected the shop that look most welcoming and not too aggressive. We also had a plan for our lunch...we gotto have a meal at Hamdi before going back. But, since we just had breakfast not so long time ago, we needed to exercise to digest first. So, we went to explore its side alley. There were mix type of stores; sweets, hardware and well as small restaurants.
We walked pass a small and very local looking kebab restaurant. It looked really nice with an open grill at the center of the restaurant and small tables. There were also a couple tables in front. Interestingly, the table didn't look like a normal table at all. It was like a round silver tray with a wooden legs.
We walked further till we arrived at the main street then, we strolled back along the main street. Along the way, we saw more hardware shops. Also, we saw a really good looking some kind of kebab shop. It looked really yummy and the waiter was preparing an order for his customer. So, I tried to capture some pictures. Once the waiters saw what I was doing, a couple of them actually turned and smile to the camera. It was so funny. People here sure weren't camera shy.
Then, we reached Hamdi. Honestly, I wasn't that hungry, more like a craving. We were directed to almost the same table. When the waiter came to greet us, he did pause a little as he recognized our faces. The service was excellent now that we knew each other...well, sort of. It didn't take us long to decide what to have since we had been thinking about this place for sometimes. We agreed to share the pistachio kebab because we love it so much. But then, instead of sharing another main dish, we each got our own order. Greedy, I know. I ordered doner kebab with sauce.
It was rich and totally satisfying. So, no more regret. After the meal, we picked some pistachio to bring home (didn't want to get before this because we didn't want to carry it around). Then, we headed back to our hotel to pack. Actually, we already checked out. So, we only needed to stuff our gifts into our luggage, right in the middle of the hotel lobby. At that time, it was only early afternoon. We still have a few more hours to kill. So, we walked to Sultanahmet park, just wanted to see Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque again.
No matter how many times I saw them, I just couldn't get enough. Both looked very majestic and serene. After that, we went to Divan Yolu Cd which was where the tram stop is. We just wanted to stroll around and kill more time. Then, it was time....for an afternoon tea. There was a tea shop that we had been looking at everytime we walked pass. The placed is called Edebiyat Kiraatthanest, what a name. It was very easy to spot, a marble traditional looking shop with yummy looking pudding on display. The interior just said old time to me.
Entering, we saw a counter with many kinds of Turkish Delight as well as pastries. We were informed that we could just go stright to table and waiter would come and assist us. There were, I think, three areas to choose from. The room we choose felt like a reading room with table all around along the wall and a big wooden table at the center with magazines.
For our snacks, my friend chose a noodle like pastry with some pistachio. It was, as usual, super sweet, enough to get goosebump. Also, we thought that we needed to order one pudding since we had beeon looking at them through the glass for so long. We decided on a simple rice pudding. So popular it was, we had to wait for the next batch which was like 15 mins away. It was creamy, sweet and very aromatic. Could hardly find any rice though.
This just about concluded our time here. After finished, we went back to hotel, asked the reception to get us cab and headed to airport. We did have one more incidence at the airport with regards to our ticket but, we got home safely and very happy.
I truly truly love this country. It has been a wonderful experiences both times I was here. Turkey has all the elements I like when choosing destination; long history, beautiful architecture & sights, interesting culture, and delicious & tasty food. Even better, I can experience the exotic cultures and history but with clean and convenience of European country. I wouldn't mind at all to come back here again and again.
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