One of the most fascinating places we visited on our Mediterranean cruise on Holland America Line last spring was the ancient city of Ephesus, near the port city of Kusadasi. Ephesus, second only to Rome in size in the first and second centuries A.D., was an important trade and port city which was eventually destroyed and mostly buried by a series of earthquakes. Many of the public buildings have been excavated (the library is a well-recognized edifice),  but there is much still buried in this city which was home to an estimated 250,000.

I visited Ephesus nearly two years ago, on our last cruise, and found its marble streets and buildings beautiful. I didn’t then have the chance to visit the Terrace Houses, so on this trip I vowed to do so. Located near the library, these private homes would compare today to our most luxurious condos in the heart of New York, Chicago or Paris. They step up a steep hillside, with the roof of a lower unit serving as the terrace for the one immediately above. The whole site is covered with a protective roof, allowing archaeologists to restore and research while preserving the lovely frescoes and mosaics they have unearthed from the elements.

The tour begins at the lowest level, and one passes by a large banqueting hall which was once sheathed in colorful slabs of marble. Bits of stone lie on tables, with the whole space looking like some giant jigsaw puzzle convention. One makes one’s way on plexiglass platforms and stairs, gradually working up to the very top of the site. Beside and beneath you lie the remains of six elegant homes on three levels, some more than 3,000 square feet and boasting large, fresco-decorated rooms. A labyrinth of clay pipes beneath the floors and behind the walls heated the rooms, and I could imagine the citizens living a very comfortable life here.

I was most impressed with the detail and beauty of several of the mosaics on the floors of the rooms. It made me wonder what other treasures still lie buried and undiscovered in the hills around this ancient site.

— Patty Vanikiotis, associate editor/copy editor