After leaving Istanbul we headed down the coast to the port of Izmir where we docked for the day so we could go to the Roman ruins of Ephesus.   One of the unique aspects of the ruins is that you start on one end and work your way downhill till you reach the other end(of the portion that has been uncovered).  The bus then picks you up there so you don’t have to make the walk back up.

There was a decent amount of elevation change and it was pretty warm so it really worked out.

The interesting thing was when the city was founded there was water in valley that allowed for shipping of supplies and trade, but over time the water dried up and the citizens just decided to abandon the city in mass, no war, no plague,nothing.  They just moved out and forgot about it