Ancient Ephesus - Turkey

Ephesus was one of the greatest cities of the Ionian Greeks in Asia Minor. It is location in modern day Turkey, the city ruins provide ample history to explore. This grand hillside town is by far the best place in the Eastern Mediterranean for you to get a real feel for what city life was like in Greco-Roman antiquity. The restoration of its shops, elegant houses, fountains, vast theater and magnificent monumental library as well as a bar or two and a brothel. It is more impressive than Pompeii. Even today's throngs of visitors strolling down the marble colonnaded main street, where you can see chariot marks in the beautiful white marble and around its marketplace so you can manage to evoke the buzzing metropolis that Ephesus was in its heyday 2000 years ago.

The city was in many ways, the Mediterranean's Big Apple. It was the most prosperous port in the Eastern Mediterranean and was Europe's gateway to the Asian continent. Over the centuries, silt brought down from the River Meander halted all harbor activities and left the Ephesus of today some five miles from the sea which is amazing to see.

The prosperity of Ephesus was originally based, just as today, on the tourist trade from pilgrims traveling from all over the Mediterranean and Asia Minor to visit the Temple of Artemis. The giant shine to the Greek goddess of fertility and hunting (known later to the Romans as Diana)

was the first such temple built entirely of marble and came to be regarded as one of the Seven Wonders of the World.

At the bottom of Curetes Street is the town's most elegant surviving monument, the Library of Celsus which was built in 135 A.C by Gaius Julius Aquila. The theater is spectacular, seating 25,000 people and the sound is excellent as people practiced their singing from the stage while friends sat on the back row. I, of course, had to try my singing talent and its true, my friend on the back row said I sounded such as bad as usual.

This is a must see if you are visiting Turkey. Istanbul should be the main attraction of an itinerary with its palace, the mosque, the spice market, a river cruise and my favorite, the Grand Bazaar. 1000 Shops all full of treasures. Every time I go, I buy a carpet. This is a very popular destination for a cruise. A lovely way to go. You only unpack once and there are no extra costs especially if you go on a cruise ship which doesn't charge for water and other incidentals. I think Turkey is more interesting than Greece, for ancient ruins.

Maureen Jones

Travel Consultant

650-961-2340