Day Nine: Kusadasi, Turkey

Our day's tour began with a visit to the house of the Virgin Mary, where Jesus' mother is said to have lived the last years of her life. The site has been officially declared a shrine of the Roman Catholic Church and was visited by Pope Paul VI in 1967.

We then continued to the ancient city of Ephesus. With a population greater than Pompeii, it was one of the largest roman settlements of its day. The Great Theatre dates back to the Hellenistic period. In the 1st century AD, the ampitheatre was successfully reconstructed and expanded by the Romans until it reached a seating capacity of 25,000. This is also the place where St Paul preached to the Ephesians. It is still used for performances today, and the acoustics are excellent. The Marble Road which runs between the theatre and the Celsus Library is part of a sacred walkway that leads you to the Celsus Library and Hadrian's Temple. The temple was dedicated in AD 118 to Hadrian, Artemis and the people of Ephesus, but was greatly reconstructed in the 4th century. This impressive Corinthianstyle temple has beautiful reliefs on the porch, and the Ephesians believed that the Medusa head on the porch would protect the city from its enemies. Leaving Ephesus, we walked, as Mark Antony and Cleopatra did, along a tree-lined road to where the old port was located.

Lunch was a Turkish feast. We were taken to an excellent outdoor train museum. An affluent local had assembled an impressive collection of antique locomotives, parked on a sprawling private lawn. There were long tables of delicacies - grilled meats with lamb and kebobs. The dessert table was laden with twenty variations of baklava. The liveried servers attended to the buffet while a local dance troupe entertained us.

The cruise is coming to a crescendo: tomorrow, the scenic caldera of Santorini.