A magical Mediterranean vacation COMPLETED - Page 37 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
As of January 1, 2019, we have closed our forums. This is a decision we did not come to lightly, but it is necessary. The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk. The server software itself must be updated, and it cannot be without removing the forums.
So it is with a heavy heart that we say goodbye to our long-running forums. They came online in 2000 and brought together so many wonderful Disney fans. We had friendships form, careers launch, couples marry, children born ... all because of this amazing community.
Thank you to each of you who were a part of this community. You made it possible.
And a very special thank you to our Guides (moderators), past and present, who kept our forums a happy place to be. You are the glue that held everything together, and we are forever grateful to you. Thank you aliceinwdw, Caldercup, MrsM, WillCAD, Fortissimo, GingerJ, HiddenMickey, CRCrazy, Eeyoresmom, disneyknut, disneydani, Cam22, chezp, WDWfan, Luvsun, KMB733, rescuesk, OhToodles!, Colexis Mom, lfredsbo, HiddenMickey, DrDolphin, DopeyGirl, duck addict, Disneybine, PixieMichele, Sandra Bostwick, Eeyore Tattoo, DyanKJ130, Suzy Q'Disney, LilMarcieMouse, AllisonG, Belle*, Chrissi, Brant, DawnDenise, Crystalloubear, Disneymom9092, FanOfMickey, Goofy4Goofy, GoofyMom, Home4us123, iamgrumpy, ilovedisney247, Jennifer2003, Jenny Pooh, KrisLuvsDisney, Ladyt, Laughaholic88, LauraBelle Hime, Lilianna, LizardCop, Loobyoxlip, lukeandbrooksmom, marisag, michnash, MickeyMAC, OffKilter_Lynn, PamelaK, Poor_Eeyore, ripkensnana, RobDVC, SHEANA1226, Shell of the South, snoozin, Statelady01, Tara O'Hara, tigger22, Tink and Co., Tinkerbelz, WDWJAMBA, wdwlovers, Wendyismyname, whoSEZ, WildforWD, and WvuGrrrl. You made the magic.
We want to personally thank Sara Varney, who coordinated our community for many years (among so many other things she did for us), and Cheryl Pendry, our Message Board Manager who helped train our Guides, and Ginger Jabour, who helped us with the PassPorter-specific forums and Live! Guides. Thank you for your time, energy, and enthusiasm. You made it all happen.
There are other changes as well.
Why? Well, the world has changed. And change with it, we must. The lyrics to "We Go On" for IllumiNations say it best:
We go on to the joy and through the tears
We go on to discover new frontiers
Moving on with the current of the years.
We go on
Moving forward now as one
Moving on with a spirit born to run
Ever on with each rising sun.
To a new day, we go on.
It's time to move on and move forward.
PassPorter is a small business, and for many years it supported our family. But the world changed, print books took a backseat to the Internet, and for a long time now it has been unable to make ends meet. We've had to find new ways to support our family, which means new careers and less and less time available to devote to our first baby, PassPorter.
But eventually, we must move on and move forward. It is the right thing to do.
So we are retiring this newsletter, as we simply cannot keep up with it. Many thanks to Mouse Fan Travel who supported it all these years, to All Ears and MousePlanet who helped us with news, to our many article contributors, and -- most importantly -- to Sara Varney who edited our newsletter so wonderfully for years and years.
And we are no longer charging for the Live Guides. If you have a subscription, it's yours to keep for the lifetime of the Live Guides at no additional cost. The Live Guides will stay online, barring server issues and technical problems, for all of 2019.
That said, PassPorter is not going away. Most of the resources will remain online for as long as we can support them, and after that we will find ways to make whatever we can available. PassPorter means a great deal to us, and to many of you, and we will do our best to keep it alive in whatever way we can. Our server costs are high, and they'll need to come out of our pockets, so in the future you can expect some changes so we can bring those costs down.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for your amazing support over the years. Without you, there's no way us little guys could have made something like this happen and given the "big guys" a run for their money. PassPorter was consistently the #3 guidebook after the Unofficial and Official guides, which was really unheard of for such a small company to do. We ROCKED it thanks to you and your support and love!
If you miss us, you can still find some of us online. Sara started a new blog at DisneyParkPrincess.com -- I strongly urge you to visit and get on her mailing list. She IS the Disney park princess and knows Disney backward and forward. And I am blogging as well at JenniferMaker.com, which is a little craft blog I started a couple of years ago to make ends meet. You can see and hear me in my craft show at https://www.youtube.com/c/jennifermaker . Many PassPorter readers and fans are on Facebook, in groups they formed like the PassPorter Trip Reports and PassPorter Crafting Challenge (if you join, just let them know you read about it in the newsletter). And some of our most devoted community members started a forum of their own at Pixie Dust Lane and all are invited over.
So we encourage you to stay in touch with us and your fellow community members wherever works best for you!
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More amazing pictures of Ephesus!! The bathrooms were certainly interesting, and after reading Laurie's response, I'm just thankful that I live in modern times!!
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The ruins are so beautiful, and you've done an excellent job of capturing so many of the details in your photos, making me feel like I am almost touring along with you. I'm another who is thankful to have been born after the invention of modern restroom facilities.
Gosh to have seen this city in it's time sure would have been something else, because in it's ruins is so amazing. Even just a short 10 yrs ago I can't recall it being that busy, but again I also can't recall what day of the week we were there either.
I have a classic pic or Arnaud actually sitting on those toilets...it's one of my faves
I think I do remember our guide saying that only about 25% of the city has been recovered at the point we were there..........so wow, just so much more to find and explore and see. I would love to go back again for sure one day, hopefully with the kids when they are older
You haven't mentioned the heat as much today, I'm sure still hot, but hopefully a smidge better.
PassPorter's Free-Book to Walt Disney World It’s hard to believe anything is free at Walt Disney World; but there are actually a number of things you can get or do for little to no cost. This e-book documents over 200 free or cheap tips to do before you go and after you arrive. You could save a considerable amount of money following these tips. Perhaps more importantly; you can discover overlooked attractions and little-known details most people whiz by on their way to spend money. Click here to see free sample pages from the e-book! Get this popular e-book free of extra charges when you join the PassPorter's Club for as little as $4.95. A club pass includes access to all our other e-books; e-worksheets; super-size photos; and more! This e-book is also available for separate purchase in the PassPorter Online Store for just $5.95.
The ruins are so beautiful, and you've done an excellent job of capturing so many of the details in your photos, making me feel like I am almost touring along with you. I'm another who is thankful to have been born after the invention of modern restroom facilities.
Thanks. I always feel that's the ultimate compliment when people say they feel as if they're touring with us, as that's what I always aim to try and achieve.
Gosh to have seen this city in it's time sure would have been something else, because in it's ruins is so amazing.
I know. I bet it was an amazing sight and no doubt bustling with life.
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Even just a short 10 yrs ago I can't recall it being that busy, but again I also can't recall what day of the week we were there either.
And I'm sure in the last 10 years, the amount of cruise ships coming in there has probably increased a lot, as I know cruising has become a lot more popular in recent years.
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I have a classic pic or Arnaud actually sitting on those toilets...it's one of my faves
Love it!
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I think I do remember our guide saying that only about 25% of the city has been recovered at the point we were there..........so wow, just so much more to find and explore and see. I would love to go back again for sure one day, hopefully with the kids when they are older
It's just unbelievable that there's so much more still to find and obviously the rate they're going, it won't all be uncovered in our lifetimes.
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You haven't mentioned the heat as much today, I'm sure still hot, but hopefully a smidge better.
Wednesday 9 July – part five: oh my goodness, it’s real!
We then stopped to admire the Library of Celsus from a distance and to me, this was the stand out place here. It was just beautiful. We were told that there was a tunnel that led from there to the local brothel, so that the men could tell their wives that they were going to library!
The tunnel…
We also saw lots of restoration work going on here. Fulia had earlier explained to us that a lot of the work is being done by the University of Austria and they were particularly busy now, because it’s summer season and a lot of the students have their summer break. Apparently, because of their work, Austria paid something like €1 million each year on top of the money they get from visitors and there’s also money donated from big companies as well to fund the restoration work.
We were now down at the library and were given five minutes to have a look around. The façade has been carefully reconstructed from the original pieces they found, and it was originally built in around 125 AD in memory of an Ancient Greek who was a governor of Roman Asia. Celsus paid for the construction from his own personal wealth and is buried in a sarcophagus beneath the library. The building faces east, so that the reading rooms could make the best use of the morning light, and it once held 12,000 scrolls.
We climbed the stops up to see inside and where immediately glad that we had, because it was nice and cool and shady in there. This really was quite something and I just adored this building. If I had seen only this today, I would’ve been happy, but we had seen so much more and our tour wasn’t over yet…
I just had to touch it! Just chillin’ in the heat…
Fulia had earlier told us that you can see only 20% of the sit and to get that far has taken more than 200 years, so it will be another 800 years at that rate before the whole site has been excavated.
We walked out through the agora or marketplace, which also reminded us of Pompeii.
Then it was our final stop, the theatre and it certainly was bigger than the one we had seen earlier. Apparently it’s still used today and people like Elton John, Chris de Burgh and Sting have played here. Looking at it, I’m not sure I’d want to come to a concert here, as the seats didn’t exactly look comfortable, shall we say. It holds something like 25,000 spectators, and although it was built as a theatre, I’m sure you won’t be surprised to learn that it was later used for gladiator contests during the Roman era. It was believed to be the largest outdoor theatre in the ancient world.
Fulia told us that the best views were from the tree lined avenue that led to the exit, so that’s where we headed and she was right.
When we got to the exit, I took a restroom break and this wasn’t even half as nice as the previous one. Ok, so not all restrooms in Turkey are nice then…
We had a look in the shop and got a fridge magnet and headed out into the main shopping area. Fortunately, the sellers here didn’t annoy us too much.
When we got back to the bus, the “professional photographer” was waiting for us, having accompanied us around the site. He had the photo he’d taken of us outside the Library of Celsus earlier. I was looking forward to getting one, as they were only €3 ($4) each, which I thought was very good value, but sadly he was no professional photographer and they were hideously overexposed, so we didn’t bother.
On the way out of the parking lot, Mark pointed out a camel to me, which I thought was fake, but then he moved his head. I guess not then!
Next: how did we end up with dumb and dumber for lunch?
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The good thing about Ephesus is that there is not a modern city built on top of it, as in most places. They will eventually be able to excavate much more of the site. In places like Athens and Rome, most of the history is still underground and under buildings and roads and will never be unearthed.
How cool that they still use that venue for concerts! Might not be comfy but would be a great story to tell I'm sure Sorry about the photos, that's always such a shame!
Wow, just wow! The library is beautiful in it's current state, I can't even imagine what it looked like in it's glory. And the stadium is surely a site to behold as well!
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I'm another who is thankful to have been born after the invention of modern restroom facilities. 
...it's one of my faves
I'm sure people have no idea of the derivation of that phrase when they use it!
I always feel that's the ultimate compliment when people say they feel as if they're touring with us, as that's what I always aim to try and achieve.
It holds something like 25,000 spectators, and although it was built as a theatre, I’m sure you won’t be surprised to learn that it was later used for gladiator contests during the Roman era. It was believed to be the largest outdoor theatre in the ancient world. 
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