Kofte, kofte, and more kofte.

Selcuk is a popular tourist destination in the Western Anatolia region of Turkey. It was amazing to learn about the historical significance of this area of the world and of the different empires that occupied the region.

Ephesus. Ephesus was an ancient Greek city along the Aegean Coast. The Romans and the Byzantine Empire later occupied Ephesus before being incorporated into the Ottoman Empire.

Temple of Artemis. Nearby is the site of the famed Temple of Artemis, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, however little of it remains.

Basilica of Saint John. Constructed by Justinian I, it stands over the believed burial site of John the Apostle.

While in Selcuk, we stayed at this amazing place called Hotel Akay. Our place had excellent WiFi (a must when traveling with two techies), and swimming pool, and kind service.

The best part about Hotel Akay? The food. It was awesome. Equal to, if not actually better, than the food at any of the places in town. For breakfast, we were offered a Turkish breakfast buffet, consisting of bread, eggs, tomatoes, cucumbers, olives, and feta cheese. For dinner, we would order a huge mezze plate filled with eggplant salad, yogurt with cucumber, spicy tomato, yogurt with herbs, hummus, tomatoes, cucumbers, and dolma (ours had pepper stuffed with rice)…a great spread for someone like me who does not eat a lot of meat. I think Andy and Brandon were even more excited about the meat-fest they binged on multiple times -- kofte (a Turkish version of a meatball skewered and grilled) and adana kebap (a larger and spicy version of kofte). The first night we ate at our hotel’s restaurant, they had decided on splitting one order each of kofte and adana kebap, only to end up ordering yet another kofte plate by the end of the night.

kl.