Ephesus Cats

Jake meets a local feline in the Latrine

Type "Ephesus Cats" into a search engine and you will find that the feline inhabitants of Turkey's most impressive ruin are almost as famous as its splendid library and theatre. Look for "Ephesus Dogs" however and it will be a stray labrador-cross, that gate-crashed Mendelssohn's Italian Symphony No 4 and sat down beside the Vienna Chamber Orchestra's first violinist last June, that grabs the headlines (and rightly so - obviously a music lover, he had the best seat in the auditorium). You Tube clip

Along side the hundreds of online photos of cats in Ephesus I add my own picture of my ailurophile friend Helen capturing a few more shots of a friendly feline in the bath house. . 

Most visitors assume the cats are wild and uncared for, existing on handouts from tourists. Luckily this is not the case. If you use the toilet block at the theatre (lower) entrance of Ephesus, you will see alongside feeding bowls on the wall, a discrete collection box.  Veli, who looks after the WC block, uses the donated money to buy food and medicines for the cats that live in the ancient site.  

So even if you don't want to spend a penny at Ephesus, please visit the loos and drop a few lira into Veli's money box.