Selcuk

The Selcuk empire existed from 1071 to 1299. It was the forerunner of the Ottoman Empire, who overan them in 1299. It covered much of modern day Turkey and Syria. The city of Selcuk today is only 25 500 people. It is the modern day city of Ephesus. Ephesus gradually waned in importance as silt build up on the coast, robbed it of its harbour status and thus income. Ephesus is only a couple kilometres from Selcuk.
Today Selcuk is a quiet town. Yesterday we spent the day wandering the shopping district and finding ourselves drawn in off the street by the sales people.


One of the mosques in Selcuk. Tukey is quite a secular country. Even though we were down town during a prayer call, every one in sight ignored it and got on with their day.



Selcuk street scenes and cafe.




Sitting in a cafe we could see this castle on the hill just outside of Selcuk. It comes from the Byzantine period. Unfortunately it is now closed. But apparently it is only grass inside.



We were drawn into this carpet store by the owner who was quite the conversationalist in English. We sat down to an apple tea. He was building up a rapport with us, in the hope that if we were to buy carpets, he would be our man. (Won't do so anyway.) Buyer beware though. If the salesman talks you up to a better buy, you might find that the wrong carpet ends up at your door. Once you are on the other side of the world it is pretty hard to complain about being ripped off.