Day 46 - Selçuk I (Turkey Motorcycle Tour)

11 September 2011

It was only 113 miles from Bodrum to Selçuk. A nice ride too and an early finish to the 45th day of my Turkey motorcycle tour. And no speeding fines, thankfully.

I had originally intended to use Kuşadası as my base for exploring the area but decided at the turn off to give the coastal town a miss and park up for a few days in Selçuk. I’m glad I did this.

The Wallabies Hotel seemed an apt choice given the Rugby World Cup has just started.

After a quiet Saturday evening of blogging, I woke refreshed and met some fellow travellers over breakfast. R was Australian but now lived in London. He was also touring around on a motorbike – the Family Truckster of the day about 15 years ago. J was from San Francisco and using the more traditional means of planes and buses to travel around Turkey before heading to Italy.

We were all booked on the same tour to Ephesus that day. There was another Aussie on our tour also. Al was from Ballina and had been working as chef in the UK for the past 18 months before embarking on a lengthy tour that had already seen him in Jordan, Egypt, Israel and Spain. He was also travelling alone, more in a backpacking style.

We all had a good time exploring Ephesus, Mary’s House, a leather jacket factory, the Temple of Artemis and a rug weaving centre.

We met up again for dinner and discussed the sights we had seen earlier in the day, enjoying the Turkish cuisine, beer and red wine. The general consensus was bewilderment at how the Temple of Artemis made the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World (there was very little left of it now – surely there were more impressive candidates than this!) and that our tour guide had a chip on his shoulder (he mentioned numerous times the artefacts stolen by the English and Germans that should now be returned).

Anyway it was a good day and a nice change to be driven around in excellent company.

So much so I’ve booked another tour for Monday.

Here are some images from today’s tour.