ParMieux Adventures: black and white

Showing posts with label black and white. Show all posts

09 November 2015

The Ephesus Museum Is FINALLY Open for Business.

After three years in Turkey and seven trips to Ephesus I was thrilled when last month I saw that the Ephesus Museum was finally open!

My little brother visited me in October and one of our trips out of Istanbul was of course to Ephesus. This was my seventh, SEVENTH, trip (I am the queen of the one day Ephesus/Sirince tour). In the very nearly three years that I've been living in Turkey and coming to Ephesus, the museum, which houses most of the original statues in Ephesus-the ones there are reproductions, has been closed. With no word about when it would be open. However on this trip while taking a short cut from the "Temple" (single remaining, sad, crooked column) of Artemis and the Basilica of Saint John we passed the museum and there were people going in!! Whether he wanted to or not my brother was going to go to the museum with me.

We went to the Basilica first where we discovered that you can buy a combined ticket for things. Since we'd already gone to Ephesus we didn't need that but for 15TL instead of 20 (10 at each place) my brother could buy a combined ticket for the Basilica and museum. Muze Kart holders like myself have free entry to both places.

Almost all my pictures are black and white which I could pretend was on purpose for artistic, aesthetic something something but that would be a bald faced lie. Frankly I was too tired to drag out my big camera so I just used my little point and click on which I have no control over things such as white balance, f-stops, shutter speed, other fancy camera words. It's a miracle I ever manage to take a decent picture really. One of the many reasons I love hanging out with my brother; free camera lessons. He told me something earlier during his visit about shooting in low light and it was like a revelation. My life is never going to be the same.

Zeus. Of course.

A satyr. Dude's creepy, no?

Battle scene made out of mother of pearl

The museum even includes a statue of the god Priapus. A headless statue but I don't think his head is what people recognize when they look at/think about Priapus.

Hello Big Boy...

Priapus, son of Aphrodite and Dionysus, is a minor god in the Greek pantheon who, as a fertility god was the protector of farm animals and male genitalia. Apparently there's a pretty well intact fresco in Pompeii which I'm going to look for when I'm there later this month. Apparently, despite the giant and perpetual erection he was impotent and blamed donkeys for the loss of his honor. Although it seems that he hates donkeys because one thwarted his attempt to rape the goddess Hestia so...I think he didn't have much honor to begin with. You can read Priapus' full details here.

It's really a gorgeous museum. The set up and flow through the rooms is really nice and there's a semi-sheltered outdoor area to the museum as well. Naturally I played with the cat while my brother wandered around. I always joke that no trip is complete unless I have fallen down; well I didn't exactly fall but I'm counting it. As I was crouching down to pet the cat my backpack, laden with camera, extra lens, water bottle, etc., etc. pulled me over backwards. Luckily the result was simply me sitting down super clumsily instead of falling on my back to crush any of the equipment.

Worth a three year wait? Eh, maybe not. Worth taking an hour or so to visit while you're in Selcuk? Definitely. The statues they have in there are stunning and as I said the museum itself is rather lovely.

10 August 2015

Budapest Revisited

Twelve years ago I visited, not only Budapest, but Eastern Europe for the very first time. I hated it. I did not get why people liked Budapest so much. It did not help that it was still fracking winter and snowing and bitterly cold. Or that I was getting a little culture shocked from the Eastern European mindset, or that I couldn't speak the language.

Well I still can't speak the language (I'm sorry Hungarians but really?) and my German is actually worse now than it was 12 years ago but now I'm a lot more accustomed to being able to communicate without a firm grasp of the local language. Plus, a lovely, cool summer day makes just about any city enjoyable. So on the one day we had free from the travesty of a work event that had me stuck in Hungary I took a train into Budapest and enjoyed the day.

First up of course was Mass at Szt Istvan Bazilika. In Hungarian. Sigh. I miss Latin.

After Mass I met up with my colleague with whom I had taken the 7AM train into the city. We wandered a bit, had a drink a schmancy hotel near Saint Stephen's, and then saw this:

You can't really see it in this picture but it's a Georgian restaurant called Hachapuri!! A GEORGIAN RESTAURANT!!!! We had a moment of mind meld and headed straight for it without a word. Heaven. Pure heaven. We stayed there eating, drinking, and talking for about three hours...just long enough for all the grey clouds to disappear and the sun to come out!

We had those eggplant rolls with walnut paste (I can never remember what they're called: let's go with transcendent deliciousness), khachapouri ajari (the only khatchapouri in my book), mushroom khinkali, and beef/pork khinkali. And there was wine. Georgian wine! A lovely Rkatsiteli, perfect for a summer day.

After we pulled ourselves away from the Georgia restaurant (where I bought a bottle to go!) there was more wandering around.

While walking around we found the synagogue and I was reminded of how much I love this building. Sure I think Saint Stephen's is stunning (although the interior is a little too Byzantine for my taste), but the synagogue is stunning. The largest in Europe, it is over 150 years old and built in a Moorish style. Sadly we didn't have enough time to take the tour but maybe next time.

The train ride back to the middle of no where was a nice end to the day. I forget how much I love trains. We had a spectacular sunset to admire as we raced (well chugged along speedily I suppose) through the Hungarian countryside.

Between stalls at the festival and dutyfree I came home with a pretty decent haul: five bottles of Hungarian wine, one bottle of Georgian wine, one bottle of vodka, one bottle of rum, 3 pounds of brown sugar, and a giant pork sausage.

And Sherlock was almost as happy to see me as she was to play with the suitcase.

15 July 2013

Ephesus in Black and White

A couple years ago I went to Ephesus on a day trip. I went back this fourth of July weekend with some good friends who were visiting. There were a few significant differences between the two trips.

1. I had a wide angle lens this time. It was very exciting for me.

2. It's so very much hotter in July than it is in November!

The info card on this actually said that this was a 'Cubit post modern architectural expressionism"

3. There were many more tourists.

4. And it was really, fracking hot. Have I mentioned that?

Ephesus really is fantastic and is well worth a visit. The city is the most complete set of ruins in that area of the world. It's also easy to navigate on your own if you don't want to deal with a tour guide. If reading the placards around the site aren't enough for you, audio guides can be rented for a fairly reasonable amount.

The library in Ephesus, Hadrian's Library, has also been restored to its former ruinous glory by the Austrians. It's facade and the statues of the four Muses that guard the entrance are very impressive. One wonders if more libraries looked like this nowadays if more people would be inspired by the buildings to actually go in and read.

I for one need t check out a book on Hadrian. That man seems to have been even more everywhere than Alexander and has libraries, gates, and walls with his name on them all over the blasted place.