From Kusadasi/Selcuk: Highlights of Ephesus Small Group Tour

The tour starts with your pick-up from your hotel in Kusadasi. The pick-up in Kusadasi starts at 08:30 am, and the pick-up in Selcuk starts at 09:00 am. After all the participants of the tour meet up; the discovery of Ephesus starts with the House of the Virgin Mary.

The House of the Virgin Mary is the place where Mary may have spent her last days. Indeed, she may have come to this area together with Saint John. This place was officially declared a shrine of the Roman Catholic Church in 1986, and since then it has become a popular place of pilgrimage. Pope Paul VI visited the shrine in 1967. The visit to the House (church) takes about 1 hour and after our visit there will be a 10 min drive to Ephesus.

Ephesus is an exceptional testimony to the cultural traditions of the Hellenistic, Roman Imperial, and early Christian periods. Ephesus is an important site for Christianity; being one of the seven Churches of Revelation Apostle Paul probably spent two and half years in Ephesus during his third missionary journey. In two hours, you will be exploring the city by walking on the marble streets, accompanied by our English-speaking tour guide. On our tour, we will be seeing the Odeon, state agora, the Prytaneion, the Memmius monument, the Domatian temple, Hercules Gate, curates street, the Hadrian temple, and the Latriens. The visit to the private houses (So-called ‘Terrace Houses') is an optional visit for an extra 320 ₺/ per person and your guide should be informed beforehand. After the terrace houses, we will carry on with our exploration of the Celsus library, marble road, commercial Agora, great theatre, and Arcadiane (harbor road).

A nice lunch will be served in a quaint local restaurant.
After lunch, we will visit the temple of Artemis, one of the 'seven world wonders' of antiquity. Here, there will be a good chance to take gorgeous pictures of the church of St.John and the Mosque of İsa Bey.

Sirince is an old village of ‘the Byzantine Greeks situated on the hills of Selcuk and 9 km from Ephesus. As part of the peace pact after the Turkish national war (1919-1922), a formal exchange of Turkish and Greeks, was agreed upon and Sirince is inhabited by Turkish now. The village is popular for beautiful traditional houses and fruit-flavored wine production, and you will have free time for some wine tasting.
Our daily tour will be finalized around 4:30 pm and you will be brought back to your hotels.