Rystil's Update, Episode II:
I'm almost halfway through the trip, and my current hotel has wireless internet, so I may be able to make some game updates, though I might not. We are here for a few days more though, so we'll see.
We saw a bunch of other stuff in Istanbul, including a few more mosques and a really awesome archaeological museum with stuff from Mycenean Greece, Dark Age Greece, Classical period, and then some random Hittite and Egyptian stuff too. Anyway, we left Constantinople and saw the site of Ilium (Troy from Homer's Iliad), which had more ruins and excavation than I expected, plus the requisite giant wooden horse. After that, we saw a neat cliffside Hellenistic theatre at Assos, then moved on to Pyrgamum, which had the second-biggest library in the ancient world (after Alexandria). Pyrgamum had a really neat acropolis with a temple to Hadrian and a lot of space to explore among the ruins, as well as a red church with underground passageways and an Asklaepion (a medical centre dedicated to Asclepius, god of healing). After that, we saw Sardis, the capital of the kingdom of Lydia (home of kings Midas and Croesus), which had an impressive reconstructed gymnasium facade. Finally, I checked out Ephesus, which in addition to the basically non-existant Temple of Artemis (of Seven Wonders fame) had a huge number of other buildings, including a Christian castle and the home of Mary after John took her there.
Cheers,
Rystil