Tarsus

I think I’m going to go home without any sense of how large Turkey is. I sleep on every bus ride, which modifies the experiential element of time passage. Apparently, we traveled over 5 hours today to leave Cappadocia and come to Tarsus, and then continue on to Iskenderun. So we’ve left the cool central mountains and come down to the southern Mediterranean coast, but as far as my experience goes, they’re right next to each other.

I guess the other way I could mark distance is pay attention to these Roman milestones.

We celebrated Mass in the only remaining church in Tarsus. It's name? St. Paul’s! It seems to have been relatively recently built, but the Turkish revision has been so extensive there’s no record of the building’s history.

I realized that last year I celebrated my birthday in the Basilica of Saint Peter, so it was appropriate this year to celebrate in the Church of Saint Paul!


















The modern city of Tarsus, which impressively still bears the same name of the first century, is right on top of the ancient site, and so archeological digs are minimal.










One portion uncovered is the Roman road.






Because there is evidence of the site of the former Jewish quarter, you can get a pretty good estimate of the whereabouts of where Saint Paul would have been born.









The other archeological indicators are contemporary signage.






Still present from the neighborhood is the original well, today known as Saint Paul's Well.











Well met. Cool water on a hot day.





Tonight we're on the coast! Staying at a monastery in Iskenderun, we walked along the sea to end the day with the classic cup of Turkish tea.