The Stork Highway of Ancient Rome

Walking through Selçuk’s streets during the ongoing heat wave, we couldn’t help but notice the most unusual sight: massive white storks perched confidently atop Roman aqueduct ruins and modern utility poles alike. These aren’t just random visitors – they’re part of an annual migration pattern that has turned this historic town into Turkey’s unofficial stork capital.

Every March, storks return to Selçuk from their winter homes in sub-Saharan Africa. The storks choose the highest points available for their nests, including the remnants of Byzantine aqueducts that once supplied water to ancient Ephesus. Local authorities have even installed special platforms on utility poles to prevent the birds from electrocution while preserving their traditional nesting sites.

Mysteries of the Multi-Breasted Goddess

Our visit to the Ephesus Museum revealed one of archaeology’s most debated artifacts: a towering statue covered in what appears to be dozens of breasts. This is the famous Artemis of Ephesus, but those protuberances might not be what they seem.

The 292-centimetre-tall statue actually represents a fascinating scholarly controversy. While traditionally interpreted as multiple breasts symbolizing fertility, many experts now believe these oval objects are bull testicles, hung as offerings during sacrificial ceremonies. Some scholars even suggest they could be bee larvae, as bees were sacred to Artemis. What makes this debate particularly intriguing is that none of the “breasts” have nipples – a detail that ancient sculptors, masters of human anatomy, would hardly have overlooked.

This statue likely stood in the Temple of Artemis, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, making it a tangible connection to one of antiquity’s most celebrated structures. The temple’s destruction by 401 CE means this museum piece represents our closest link to understanding how the ancient world venerated this powerful goddess.

Where Emperors Built Upon Apostles

The ruins of the Basilica of Saint John dominate Ayasoluk Hill, their weathered stones telling a story of imperial ambition, religious devotion, and inevitable decay. Emperor Justinian I commissioned this massive structure between 548 and 565 CE, designing it as both a pilgrimage destination and a worthy monument to house the tomb of John the Apostle.

The basilica measured 428 by 213 feet, making it potentially the seventh-largest church in the world if reconstructed today. Justinian modeled it after the Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople, creating a cruciform structure crowned with six domes. The builders incorporated materials from the nearby Temple of Artemis and other Ephesian ruins, recycling ancient marble and stones into Christian architecture.

The basilica’s decline began with Arab raids in the 7th and 8th centuries, which forced the construction of defensive walls around the structure. By 1304, invading Seljuk Turks converted part of the building into a mosque, and in 1402, Tamerlane’s Mongol army destroyed it during their invasion. Earthquakes in the 1360s completed the devastation, leaving the impressive ruins we see today.

A Castle Built on Sacred Ground

Crowning Ayasoluk Hill above the basilica ruins stands a fortress that represents the practical realities of medieval defense. The Ayasoluk Castle, built during the Byzantine era around the 6th century CE, incorporates stones from dismantled Roman buildings, including materials from Ephesian structures.

The castle’s strategic position made it valuable to successive rulers. Seljuk Turks expanded it after conquering the area in 1090, and Ottoman forces later added their own modifications. The fortress enclosed fifteen towers connected by 1.5 kilometres of walls, protecting a small community that included a mosque, cisterns, baths, and residential quarters.

What makes this castle particularly fascinating is its relationship with the basilica below. Rather than destroying the Christian site, medieval builders incorporated it into their defensive strategy, using the basilica’s walls as part of the lower fortress complex. This created unique architecture where Islamic military architecture literally rests upon Christian sacred space.

Divine Intervention at the Neighbourhood Mosque

Our exploration of Selçuk’s religious landscape led us to the İsa Bey Mosque, a remarkable example of 14th-century Anatolian architecture. Built between 1374-75 by Syrian architect Ali ibn el-Dimişki, this mosque demonstrates the transitional period between Seljuk and Ottoman architectural styles.

The mosque’s segregated prayer areas for women represent traditional Islamic practice, though such arrangements can appear restrictive to visitors from different cultural backgrounds. These architectural divisions reflect religious interpretations that prioritize modesty and separate worship spaces, practices that have shaped Islamic religious architecture for centuries.

During our visit, we discovered that the mosque offers free Quran copies to interested visitors – a practice that connects contemporary Islamic outreach with the site’s long history as a religious centre. While there, we met a local man who was especially eager to talk to us about Islam. He explained that he hadn’t actually planned to visit the mosque at that time; he was on his way to complete some errands, but on a whim decided to stop by and pick up a Quran for a friend. Instead, he ran into us and was convinced that our meeting was no coincidence, telling us he believed it was divine intervention.

Our conversation quickly turned philosophical. He earnestly shared his belief that the Quran contains the answers to every question in life, presenting it as the ultimate guide to truth. At one point, he shared a rather striking perspective: he said that people who believe in God are the highest tier of lifeforms, followed by animals, with people who don’t believe, especially those who “act like they are their own god”, ranking below animals. I couldn’t help but laugh internally, realizing that by his definition I must be beneath the neighborhood cats lounging in the sun! He meant no offense, his words were offered with sincerity and a desire to share his worldview. Still, I got the impression he didn’t realize we weren’t religious ourselves, or how his ranking might sound to an outsider.

Echoes of the Population Exchange

Our journey to Şirince village, perched on a hillside 8 kilometres from Selçuk, revealed one of Turkey’s most poignant historical legacies. This mountaintop settlement, originally called Çirkince (meaning “ugly” in Turkish), was supposedly named by its Greek founders to deter other settlers from discovering their mountain paradise.

The village prospered under its Greek Orthodox Christian population, who spoke primarily Turkish despite their religious identity. By 1908-09, over 1,000 houses sheltered Greek families who cultivated vines, tobacco, figs, and olives while maintaining their distinct cultural traditions.

The 1923 Population Exchange between Greece and Turkey devastated Şirince’s established community. This compulsory transfer, formalized in the Convention Concerning the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations, displaced approximately 1.6 million people based solely on religious affiliation. Greek Orthodox Christians from Turkish territories moved to Greece, while Muslims from Greece relocated to Turkey. The abandoned houses we encountered represent this traumatic displacement.

The Grandeur and Complexity of Ancient Ephesus

The archaeological site of Ephesus, directly connected to modern Selçuk, represents one of the Mediterranean’s most significant Roman cities. As we walked among its ruins during the intensifying heat wave, the scale and sophistication of this ancient metropolis became immediately apparent. A local restaurant owner’s joke about Efes beer – suggesting we walk a few kilometres toward ancient Ephesus since “Efes” is simply the Turkish name for the ancient city – highlighted how thoroughly this archaeological site integrates with the culture. The beer’s naming represents a modern commercial connection to ancient prestige.

The Temple of Artemis ruins, reduced now to a single reconstructed column, still commanded respect as the remains of one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Though little survives of this massive structure, which once measured 137 metres long and featured 127 columns each standing 18 metres high, the site’s significance resonates across millennia.

Ephesus declined through a combination of geographical and political factors. The Küçük Menderes River gradually silted up the harbour, cutting the city’s vital connection to maritime trade routes. Natural disasters, including a devastating earthquake in 614 CE, damaged infrastructure repeatedly. The rise of Christianity displaced traditional pagan worship, while Gothic invasions in 262 CE destroyed much of the city, including the Temple of Artemis.

I was captivated by how Ephesus’s grandeur was engineered. The ancients combined brute force and technical innovation. Iron pins and lead clamps held massive marble slabs together, damping seismic shocks and locking the city’s great structures in place (though unlikely they knew how well that method would stand up to an actual earthquake).

Workers used wooden cranes, pulleys, and earth ramps to raise monolithic columns, guiding tonnes of stone into precise positions.

We realized that knowing Latin wouldn’t have helped us decipher most Ephesian inscriptions. The city’s later inscriptions switched entirely to Greek, the region’s lingua franca after Alexander the Great’s conquest. An odd feeling – usually we lament not knowing Latin, but this time, it wouldn’t have helped at all. Amid these weighty ruins, we saw samples of the ichthys fish symbol (colloquially known as the Jesus fish symbol), scratched into ancient stones, symbolizing early Christianity. In Greek, it’s written as ΙΧΘΥΣ, and is sometimes seen abbreviated using a symbol resembling a pizza cut into eight slices.

The Temple That Bridged Empires

Among Ephesus’s countless architectural treasures, the Temple of Hadrian stands as a masterpiece of cultural synthesis. This elegantly proportioned structure, built around 117 CE, demonstrates how Roman architects embraced and transformed Eastern design traditions through its distinctive Syrian arch.

The temple’s facade tells multiple stories through stone. Tyche, goddess of city fortune, crowns the keystone wearing walls as her crown, symbolizing her protection over Ephesian prosperity. Above the inner doorway, a relief of Medusa emerges from acanthus leaves, not the terrifying monster of myth, but a protective figure surrounded by the Mediterranean vegetation that inspired Corinthian column designs.

Roman Domestic Life Preserved in Paint

The Terrace Houses of Ephesus shattered our expectations of ancient Roman domestic architecture. These luxury residences, inhabited by wealthy families from the 1st to 7th centuries CE, revealed that Roman homes were far more colourful and sophisticated than typical stone ruins suggest.

The houses featured extensive frescoed walls with floral motifs, geometric patterns, and figurative scenes painted directly onto plaster surfaces. Archaeologists have carefully restored many of these paintings, revealing the artistic sophistication of domestic Roman decoration. The mosaic floors display intricate geometric and figural designs, demonstrating the high level of craftsmanship available to Ephesian elite. These restorations represent authentic ancient artwork, not modern interpretations.

The houses incorporated sophisticated engineering, including hypocaust heating systems that circulated warm air beneath floors and within walls, and plumbing that provided both hot and cold running water. These amenities matched those available in Roman public baths, demonstrating the luxury standards of Ephesian wealthy families.

The Library That Conquered Death

The Library of Celsus stands as Ephesus’s most iconic structure, and deservedly so. This magnificent building, constructed between 110-135 CE, served the dual purpose of housing scrolls and honouring the dead. Tiberius Julius Aquila commissioned the library as a memorial to his father, Tiberius Julius Celsus Polemaeanus, who had served as Roman consul and proconsul of Asia. The building functioned as both a repository of knowledge, holding approximately 12,000 scrolls, and as Celsus’s mausoleum – his marble sarcophagus rests in a crypt beneath the building.

Fire destroyed the library’s interior around 262 CE, though the façade survived until earthquakes brought it down in the 10th or 11th century. Austrian archaeologists reconstructed the façade between 1970 and 1978, creating the impressive sight that draws crowds today for both daytime visits and evening light shows.

As we left, we saw people lined up for hundreds of meters lining up to see the evening light show – many of them coming in from cruise ships.

See more images from Selçuk and Ancient Ephesus

The Acropolis crowns a 335-metre mesa overlooking the Bakırçay Plain. Terraces carve into the slope, supporting temples, theatres and stoas laid out by Pergamon’s Attalid kings in the 3rd–2nd centuries BCE. Roman engineers later added their stamp without erasing Hellenistic lines, creating a multi-layered skyline that still dominates modern-day Bergama on the plain below.

Temple of Trajan

Built under Emperor Hadrian to honour deified Trajan and Zeus Philios, the temple doubled as imperial propaganda: placing Roman power literally above every older monument. We imagined ancient worshippers ascending the vaulted substructure, aware that loyalty to Rome meant economic perks and civic prestige.

Asia Minor cities often requested imperial cult temples to cement ties with Rome. By venerating Trajan alongside Zeus, Pergamon gained tax breaks, construction funds and prominence as a provincial capital. Statues of the emperor, fragments now in Berlin, once towered over the courtyard, signalling that divine favour and political security walked hand-in-hand.

The Steepest Theatre in the Ancient World

Carved like stadium seating on a 70-degree incline, Pergamon’s theatre packs 10,000 stone seats into half a semicircle.

This theatre is known as the steepest in the ancient world.

Where Was Their Water Source?

This aqueduct was part of an advanced water supply system built to serve the city, especially the acropolis, which sat atop a steep hill and was the center of Pergamon’s political and religious life. While the aqueduct lay at the bottom of the hill, the water in the pipeline was pushed up the hill by the weight of the water behind, like a chain being pulled over a pulley – a feat of ancient hydraulic engineering.

Once at the acropolis, water was distributed to cisterns and throughout the city via smaller pipes.

By late morning, as the heat started to build up, we caught our taxi and rejoined with the tour. Overall it was a nice visit, and we wondered why this place wasn’t actually part of the official itinerary given that it wasn’t too far from where we stayed the night.

See more photos of the Pergamon Acropolis here

Alexander the Great and his general Perdiccas originally founded the city in 331 BC, and the city was eventually conquered by the Romans in 63 BC. Under the Romans, the city prospered from the vast amount of trade moving through the city, and today, the vast ruins are a testament to that.

The city follows standard Roman city planning concepts such as the “cardo maximus”, the idea that the main street of the city is oriented north-south. This was the economic hub of the city. The ruins still show remains of this road.

Despite the city in ruins, it’s still possible to identify the structures that existed. The city used its wealth to build structures like an arch at the entrance of the city dedicated to Roman Emperor Hadrian, a hippodrome for chariot races, and a Temple of Artemis.

More photos of Jerash here

On Thursday, the day before we went to Rome, I learned from a colleague at work that the organization that ran the U-Bahn would go on strike on Friday. Knowing that we had to go to the train station the next day, we had to figure out an alternative route.  It just so happened that the nearby town of Ditzingen was only about 3 km away and from there we could take the S-Bahn (these ones weren’t on strike) to the main train station.  It took about 40 minutes to walk there, but it was necessary.  Along the way, we walked past a bunch of farmland that connected the two towns.  It seemed like we didn’t have to walk very far to reach the rural area.

We arrived at the main train station about an hour earlier than we needed to be so we just sat down for beer before beginning our trip.  Our train to the airport in Baden-Baden took about 2 hours and flying to Rome from there took about an hour and a half.  We arrived at the hostel pretty late in the evening, so we didn’t do much sightseeing except go to the nearby Piazza della Repubblica.  Since Rome was so hot, we were sweaty all over and it made good sense to take a shower when we got back to the hostel.  The worst part about it was that the water was freezing.  For some reason, the hot water didn’t work.  We talked to the reception about it and they said we’d have hot water by morning.

We didn’t get hot water in the morning either.  I followed my friend’s strategy for taking cold showers that he used during this stay in Uganda.  It pretty much worked by standing in the cold shower for as long as possible and then getting out.  It was really uncomfortable.  I didn’t really feel clean, but that had to do.  When we got ready, we took the metro to Vatican City and that’s where the real sightseeing started.

When we got on the metro at Termini Station, we couldn’t help but notice these people standing against the wall of the metro tunnel in the area where people got on the train.  It seemed as if these people were scoping potential victims for pickpocketing.  My friend let me borrow a pouch that I could tie around my body and was hidden under my shirt, so I wasn’t worried about getting pickpocketed.  I noticed that these people kept staring at other people as they walked by.  It seemed super suspicious to me.  In order to avoid these people even more, we boarded the metro at the end of the train, where there’d be the least concentration of people.

Vatican City

When we walked out of the metro and walked toward St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City, we could see into it a little bit, and it kind of prepared us for getting our minds blown when we saw the whole thing.  From the plaza, we could see the Apostolic Palace and St. Peter’s Basilica.  As I expected, my mind was totally blown away by how awesome the place looked.  We proceeded to the line up to see the inside of the basilica.  At that time, I thought the line up we were at was for the Vatican Museums, but apparently that was somewhere else.  It was only after we waited in line that I realized that we were in the wrong place.  We had an online reservation for 11 and we only figured out where we needed to be at about 10:50, so in those 10 minutes, we walked about a kilometer around the outside of the Vatican in the burning heat just to make that deadline.  We got in though.

We had bought tickets for the Vatican the day before so we didn’t have to wait in line for tickets when we were there.  Even if it cost us an extra 4 euros each, it was totally worth it.  The line up looked like it was going to take hours.

Inside the Vatican Museums, it looked like people just wanted to see the Sistine Chapel and the other exhibits didn’t really interest them.  I can understand since a lot of the statues and busts that they showed there are of people that are of no particular significance to most people.  Most people probably don’t even understand the paintings everywhere.  I know I don’t.  To me, these exhibits just look really cool and that is about it.  I don’t know the history behind them at all.  Maybe the only painting there that I sort of knew was the one of Euclid.  The painting of him showing off geometry in the street is in pretty much every single math textbook.

The museum was set up such that there was a linear path for everyone to follow and near the end of the path would be the Sistine Chapel, the highlight of the visit.  In this part of the museum, guests were not allowed to take any photos and also had to be silent in the area of worship.  Most tourists obeyed these rules except for a select few who insisted on taking photos (myself included).  Every now and then the guards would call out for everyone to be silent and many guards patrolled around the crowd telling people to put their cameras away.  I too got caught by one of the guards when I tried to take a photo, but all he did was tell me to put my camera away.  Some tourists though, kept using the flash and made it so obvious that they’re taking photos.  Little do they know that they were slowly destroying the paintings.  At least I know how to take photos without the flash.

On the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, was the famous painting of the Creation of Adam where God can be seen giving the spark of life to Adam.  I was surprised that this painting blended in so well with the others.  I had originally thought that this painting would be much more prominent.  It seemed that way because the painting was so famous.

After finishing up the Vatican Museums, we went back to St Peter’s Square to see the basilica.  By now, all the tourists were out and about and as a result it took us about an hour of waiting in line to reach the security checkpoint for the basilica.  It sucked because it only took us about 15 minutes when we were there earlier.  We had pretty much already waited, but were forced to wait again.  We found that the church required a certain attire to get in.  People wearing shorts, tank tops, and short skirts weren’t allowed in.  Luckily, I had jeans on and that was allowed (although it was awful wearing them in 30+ Celsius weather).

The wait was worth it though because St. Peter’s Basilica was the best church I had ever seen.  When we got inside, we immediately noticed how beautiful everything was decorated.  To make it all better, the position of the sun was just right so that the light shone into the church as glory rays.

It seemed like every single part of the church had some sort of decoration.  There was hardly any section of white space.  There was always a statue or some sort of engraving.  I was totally blown away by this sight.  I tried my best to capture the beauty of the glory rays.  In the ray of light, I could see small particles of dust floating around that I never managed to capture with my camera.

The sight of this church instantly made me believe that the look of all the churches I’d seen to simply be inferior.  It’s almost as if I no longer see a point in visiting any other church when I know that this one is just going to be the nicest looking one.

Walking through the Town in the Evening

After leaving the Vatican, we went to the Spanish Steps to meet the walking tour that we learned about from our hostel.  The tour wasn’t very good for me since I had so much trouble understanding the tour guide’s English.  He didn’t speak very loudly either.

From the Spanish Steps, we walked to Piazza Navona. Along the way, we saw some Roman ruins and also the most beautiful fountain ever – the Trevi Fountain.

The Roman ruins we saw were of the Pantheon and the Temple of Hadrian.  Over the years, much of the Temple of Hadrian had collapsed and the only remaining parts were just the pillars. 

Next was the Pantheon.  We couldn’t go in at the time because there was a service going on, but we went back later once it ended. 

Our next stop was the Piazza Navona, the location of a very beautiful city square.  It was surrounded by very traditional Italian architecture and a very beautiful church with an Egyptian obelisk in front of it.

Once the tour ended, we went back to the Pantheon to wait for the service to finish.  We knew when it ended and timed it so that we only had to wait a few minutes.  Many other tourists knew this too, so the crowd of tourists just waited outside and just stormed in when it was time.  When we went in, the smell of incense was still in the air and it gave the Pantheon a good smell.

After all the walking around we got really hungry and ate at a restaurant in the nearby city square of Campo de Fiori.  At that restaurant, we got to try some delicious Italian pasta and beer.  That beer tasted so good at relaxing.  Definitely needed after walking in the baking heat all day.

After eating, we revisited some of the sights along the walking tour at night before heading back to the hostel.  The next day, we would visit the Coliseum and the surrounding Forum Romanum.

More photos here