Our excursion took us to visit the home where Mary lived until she died, which has now been made into a shrine in her honour. It was a tiny little stone cottage nestled into a lovely hillside in very peaceful surroundings. Our tour guide Jamal was very entertaining and told us some lovely stories while we waited for our turn to go inside to see. In recent years both Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict have been to visit and have left an offering which is also on display. Jamal was telling us that the Muslim religion also believe in the virgin Mary and Jesus and the bible and that they also come to this place to worship and pray. We lit a candle each and said a prayer, drank some holy water and even filled a bottle to bring home.
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| Our Lady's small stone cottage |
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| Through 2 arches and you were already at the back of the house |
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| We all had a drink of the holy water and even filled a bottle to bring home |
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| These are all prayers that have been written to our lady and left on this wall |
We then went through the souvenir stalls and got heckled to buy Gucci, Prada, Breitling watch sir? And I thought Shanghai was bad!
I can't believe I got rolled buying a box of Turkish delight. I paid the equivalent to $7 for a huge box with a pissy half a dozen pieces inside and a freshly squeezed orange juice - and he made me feel like I was robbing him!
We saw a camel which the kids thought was cool. You had to pay 1 euro if you wanted your photo taken in front of it with your own camera!
We then went over to Euphesus, an ancient Greek city which was built 6th century BC, but they know the site has been occupied since neolithic times. We walked through over 2 kms of the archaeological site and saw some of the best ruins a person could see..... and really the question should be, just how many ruins can a person see????
Toilet systems that were so sophisticated for their times, Streets and Shop fronts, apartments, amphitheatres, pillars, a library and mosaic flooring. They believe that the area had a population of around 25,000 people in it's hey day. The information that Jamal provided us was really interesting and he could tell a funny story.
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| They call that path "Champs Elysee" |
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| Very unconvincing toileting faces.... |
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| The Library |
Nic couldn't wait anymore, he was busting (again) and so I asked Jamal how long before we got to the next WC. He asked if it was only for 'the little one' or 'for the big one' (No 1 or No 2s?) he took Nic by the hand and found an ver grown scrub and told him to go up there. Nic freaked out, it was far too public for him, he got stage fright. It was a classic.
After we went back to our quarters and crashed.
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