A Wonder of the Ancient World and Basilica of St John

A later start to our exploring today because I was keen to watch the Broncos v Panthers rugby league semi-final. It didn’t start until 9am, but unfortunately I was awake just after 5am. I didn’t even need the Call to Prayer as an alarm clock.

I ended up only watching the first half and then checked updates on my phone for the second-half score. At half-time we set off to visit the site of one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. We didn’t even know there was one on our doorstep until yesterday — the ruins of the Temple of Artemis. Temple of Artemis

We could walk to the temple site as it was only about a kilometre away. Sadly there isn’t really much of the temple left — just the site where it once stood, one reconstructed column, and a few old marble blocks. Still, it was pretty cool to know we had visited where one of these Ancient Wonders once stood. We can now at least say we’ve ticked one of them off!

We then continued up to the Basilica of St. John, which is just above our apartment. On the way, we came across the beautiful İsa Bey Mosque with its lovely courtyard, so we stopped there first. We didn’t have the right attire to visit inside, so that’s still on our list of things to do.

The entry fee for the Basilica was only €6, which also included access to the castle on the hill. Very good value given the size of the ruins. It must have been an impressive building in its prime.

Basilica of St John

We went right to the top of the hill to Ayasoluk Castle. The castle walls have been restored, but the inside is just open ground. It was still good to see and gave us great views back over Selçuk.

We ended our visit there and went to buy bread for lunch. Sarah made us yummy egg sandwiches, and later in the afternoon I fell asleep while trying to read my book. This doesn’t happen very often, so the walking yesterday and today must have been decent. 🤔

After I woke up, we went into town for a beer along with some hot chips. On the way, we called in to visit Ali at his shop. He did try to sell us something today 😂 but we managed to resist the temptation. He has a lot of very nice things in his shop!

Dinner ended up being hot chips, leftover bread from lunch, a few other leftovers, and some snacks.