Tues Oct 8, 2024
Hi Folks! Yep, you guessed it. Another day, another country. Today we are back in Turkey. Specifically, we’re docked in the town of Kusadasi. It’s a beach resort town on Turkey’s western Aegean coast. A jumping-off point for visiting the classical ruins at nearby Ephesus. Just offshore on Pigeon Island is a walled Byzantine castle that once guarded the town, connected to the mainland via causeway. The population is 130,000. Saint John the Evangelist and the Virgin Mary both came to live in the area.
Our first stop on our tour today, was to the village of Sirince. It’s a Greek village (many Greeks live in the Kusadasi area) and there were lots of stores along their alleyways. So grandkids, you’re getting something from Sirince!
Our next stop was to the house where the Virgin Mary lived the last 12 years of her life and died there. It was high up in the mountains above the ancient town of Ephesus. The Virgin Mary came to this house for security reasons after Jesus’s crucifixion. John the Evangelist (not John the Baptist) brought her here to this house he had built for her. Right before Jesus died, he turned to John and said this is your Mother and he turned to Mary and said this is your son. So John took care of her the rest of his life.
Mary initially lived in the center of Ephesus when it was controlled by Romans. But then soldiers started persecuting the Christian’s so John took Mary to this house on the hill for safety. They originally came to Ephesus since St Paul came here and the people here liked him. He wrote his letter to the Ephesians here. Since the house was so isolated it was hundreds of years until it was found. In
In 1891, a Nun in Germany named Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich saw a vision of Mary’s house in the Pine trees above Ephesus. She had never been there but gave vivid details about exactly where the house was. Word got out and some excavators went there and found the house. It is now a Christian pilgrimage shrine.
The house is very small and only consists of three rooms. We couldn’t take pictures but there was an entrance room, a praying room where several popes have come to and left gifts and finally the small bedroom where Mary died. Every Sunday they have mass outside the house and every Aug 15th, the day Mary died (referred to as the Feast of the Assumption by Catholics) they have a big celebration.
We said many prayers in this holy place for all our family and friends as well as the many victims of Hurricane Helene. The stories from that hurricane are so sad. We also prayed that Hurricane Milton will not cause too much damage. If any of you in Florida are in the path of Milton please stay safe. After that we came into town and walked around a bit. We then boarded the ship and had an afternoon snack and chilled. We then did trivia and did terrible! We teamed up with the team that came in first the other day but I guess we brought them down! Lol. Oh well. I’ll post another update tonight after dinner. Happy Tuesday to all!
PS: Interesting factoid we learned… the Menderes River that flows slowly and like a serpentine to the Aegean Sea from Ephesus is where the term “meandering” came from. Cool!
The Wandering Italian 