It’s 1:30pm and Randal and I are relaxing back in our room, drying out from our morning walk in the rain, I decided to leave my umbrella in the room and Randal doesn’t have one so our rain jackets, pants and backpack got fairly wet. Now, of course, the sun is shining.
Depending on whom you believe, the BBC Everest will arrive tonight in Marmaris or tomorrow or Saturday. Our Turkish Marine Agent had told us earlier this morning that the Everest would arrive Friday night or Saturday night so when we returned to our hotel we asked to extend our stay. In the room Randal read an email from one of the cruisers (who had run into the loadmaster who is here in Marmaris) saying the Everest would be here tonight, Thursday and unloaded tomorrow. Hopefully we’ll get an official email tonight or early tomorrow morning so we’ll actually know. The hotel owner has been pretty accommodating about things and is quite nice, reserved but very warm and welcoming. He provides breakfast from 8 am until 10:00 am and it’s the typical bread, cheese, hard-boiled eggs, cucumber, tomato, jam, tea, coffee. I’m learning to hold back a bit as one could eat way too much.
Moving back in time, recent and ancient, here is the story of our visit to Mary’s House on the way to Ephesus.
Ru
DoraMac
Ephesus Mary’s House
The entrance way.
We arrived with the tour buses so you just had to move along too fast. No photos were allowed and our tour had other stops to make so I didn’t feel as if there was really time to linger. Not that there was much inside, but it would have been nice just to stand still in one spot and look around. But it was too crowded.
“The House of the Virgin Mary (Turkish: Meryemana or Meryem Ana Evi, “Mother Mary’s House”) is a Christian and Muslim shrine located on Mt. Koressos (Turkish: Bülbüldağı, “Mount Nightingale”) in the vicinity of Ephesus, in modern-day Selçuk Turkey (7 kilometres (4.3 mi) from Selçuk).
Some believe that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was taken to this stone house by Saint John and lived there until her Assumption (according to Catholic doctrine), or Dormition (according to Orthodox belief).”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_the_Virgin_Mary
“The modern history of the Virgin Mary’s House is unusual. It was “discovered” in 1812 by a German nun, Sister Anne Catherine Emmerich, who never traveled away from her home.
Sister Emmerich, an invalid confined to bed, awoke in a trance with the stigmata and visions that included the Virgin Mary and Apostle John traveling from Jerusalem to Ephesus. She described Mary’s house in detail, which was recorded at her bedside by a writer named Brentano.
Emmerich described a rectangular stone house, which John had built for Mary. It had a fireplace and an apse and a round back wall. The room next to the apse was Mary’s bedroom, which had a spring running into it.
The German nun went on to say that the Virgin Mary died at the age of 64 and was buried in a cave near her house. When her coffin was opened soon after, however, the coffin and burial shroud were empty. The house was then turned into a chapel.
Years after Emmerich’s visions, a French clergyman named Gouyet read Brentano’s account and traveled to Ephesus to find the House of the Virgin. He found a house matching the nun’s description and sent word to the bishops of Paris and Rome, but didn’t receive much of a response.
On June 27, 1891, two Lazarist priests and two Catholic officials set out to Ephesus to see the house. They found a small chapel in ruins with a damaged statue of the Virgin.
They returned to Izmir with their report, and more priests and specialists were sent out to the site. Since 1892 the House of the Virgin has been a Catholic pilgrimage site. It was restored by 1897 and a shelter for visitors was set up. “ http://www.sacred-destinations.com/turkey/ephesus-house-of-the-virgin
Michael and Linda wait their turn,
The tree is growing next to the house and not through the wall as far as I could see.
The side room of the house.
The pictures on the sacred destinations website are better than mine because it was allowed to show the inside of the domed area.
A statue outside the home.
Candles for the Red Sox: in China I lit incense in 2007 and they won the Series.
Healing waters.
I wet my hands: can’t hurt.
The wishing wall where you tie a piece of something and make a wish.
I pulled a thread from my scarf. The Sox won five games. I should have tied the whole scarf because the thread only lasted for 5 games!
There were scarves and handkerchiefs and pieces of paper napkins; whatever one had handy.
A monk and a Turkish Jandarm together is an interesting comment on the land of the Crusades.
A less “odd couple” give Turkish history.
I have a photo of myself and a Chinese soldier on the Great Wall but, thought he posed, he wasn’t smiling.
We left Mary’s House on the mountain of many names but stopped for photos of this statue erected by the American Society of Ephesus. The sign said, ”Erected by the American Society of Ephesus (George B. Quatman Foundation) In Honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of Jesus. Her last years were spent in Ephesus.” October 13, 1996. I read that the historic sites of Istanbul are desperate for funding to maintain them, but the House of Mary and the ruins of Ephesus have lots of money for excavation and maintenance because of American funding.
The Statue of Mary. Her view of the valley below: the countryside was just beautiful.