As I mentioned before, Victorian Lady Sexplorer Cordelia Delachatte only visits places I've been on my travels. But that doesn't mean we see the same things (and I'm not just talking about the profusion of fantasy-grade cock that materializes as soon as she sets foot in a new place).
The best way to illustrate this is with a photo. Here's the reconstructed Library of Celsus at Ephesus, located in present-day Türkiye. In Cordelia's final adventure, Taken by the Gods, she and Jones walk over the ruins, but don't see this spectacular reassembly, which didn't happen until the 1970s. In her day, it was still in the ground."
What Cordelia could see in 1873 was ongoing work to excavate the Temple of Artemis. If you are, say, a very determined historian married to another very determined historian, and you both enjoy walks, it's a nice stroll from the Ephesus archaeological site to a clearing in the lush farmland that happened to once be a Wonder of the Ancient World.
At one point, Cordelia and Jones see a stork atop one of the reconstructed columns. If you zoom in on that photo I took, you'll understand where that idea came from.
As a NERD, I love traces of daily life. Also cats. So here's a cat photo in the ancient Roman public toilets at Ephesus. And may I recommend this Smithsonian Magazine interview about Roman shitters with some details that gave even me the ick (and I have a book with "Cesspit" in the title, so I'm not easy to gross out).
To the surprise of no one, I am a fan of pipe. Roman pipes, specifically. Ephesus has stacks of clay pipes all over the place.
Something that's unclear to me is the degree to which Romans poisoned themselves via lead pipes. I certainly assigned students a primary source where a Roman writer called out his countrymen for using lead pipes despite the fact that they were getting noticeably sick. But how common were they? And why would there be such a profusion of these clay pipes still around if Romans were hooked on the convenience of lead? I'm currently deep in historical research for the Georgian erotic romance I'm going to write next, but I'm sure I'll come back to the mystery of the pipes at some point.
Ephesus is on the coast of Türkiye, and easily reachable via the very popular Mediterranean cruise ports of İzmir and Kuşadası. And with modern ship stabilizers, there's no need to get tossed around on the sea like Cordelia did...unless you like that sort of thing. Her final adventure, Taken by the Gods, is out now in eBook and on Kindle Unlimited.
