Mark Twain Visits Ephesus
From The Innocents Abroad: “This has been a stirring day. The Superintendent of the railway put a train at our disposal, and did us the further kindness of accompanying us to Ephesus and giving to us his watchful care. “At ancient Ayassalook, in the midst of a forbidding desert, we came upon long lines of ruined aqueducts, and other remnants of architectural grandeur, that told us plainly enough we were nearing what had been a metropolis, once.” In 1867, the year Twan visited Ephesus, there was a railway station in Selcuk (then called Ayasoluk), but not much else. The railway connected various farming communities with the port city of Izmir. Twain was one in a group of tourists en route to the Holy Land. Nowadays, most of the tourists visiting Ephesus travel by bus from monstrous cruise ships that dock in Kusadasi. The few who stay in the boutique hotels of Selcuk get there by taxi, or, if they’re fit, they walk. There were no taxis in Twain’s day, and it was too hot to walk. He and