I was blessed to be able to accompany some friends of mine to Europe for a Mediterranean cruise in September 2009. The weather was beautiful and we went to many ports along the 12 day trip. This gallery highlights our time in far western Turkey.

We landed at the port city of Kusadasi and then made our way to Ephesus, a very important port city in ancient times. Ephesus was an ancient Greek city, and later a major Roman city, on the west coast of Asia Minor. It was one of the twelve cities of the Ionian League during the Classical Greek era. In the Roman period, it was for many years the second largest city of the Roman Empire; ranking behind Rome, the empire's capital. Ephesus had a population of more than 250,000 in the 1st century BC, which also made it the second largest city in the world. It played an important role during Biblical times as well as documented in the New Testament.

From there we took a bus trip to the ruins at Magnesia, and then on to the extensive ruins at Miletus. The Theater of Miletus is a primary focus of this set of ruins. Finally, we drove to the ruins of Didyma, which was the largest and most significant sanctuary in the entire territory. Its famous oracle and Temple of Apollo attracted crowds of pilgrims and was second in importance only to Delphi. Construction continued during the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC, and portions were still under construction in the Roman period. It was never entirely completed. Modern experts believe the magnificent temple would have been one of the seven wonders of the ancient world had it been completed. Even incomplete, the temple is enormous and impressive; it is the third largest in the ancient world after those of Ephesus and Samos. Originally, 122 enormous Ionic columns surrounded the temple; today only three remain intact. Dating from the 2nd century BC, the columns are 60 feet tall (the height of a six-story building) and have a diameter of 6 feet at the base. Even the stumps of columns that fell are impressive in size and display beautiful carvings at their base. It was truly an amazing sight to see.