We were in Selçuk solely to visit Ephesus which is about 3km out from the town. We arrived later in the evening and the next morning met a couple from Australia, Matt and Phoebe, who were great company and spent the day with them seeing the sites and having a bit of fun.
Ephesus has a great history, with the city founded in 900 BC but the city has been razed a few times (the first time was apparently in 650 BC) and most of what is standing at the site has been rebuilt. What has not been rebuilt is almost unrecognisable but despite this, the site draws bus loads of tourists on a daily basis. It was incredibly hot while we were there, somewhere in the 40’s (the heat was clearly getting to a few folk and the ambulances were going to and from the ruins) and it was so hot I caught Phoebe sticking her head in the freezer when we went into a shop to buy a few beers.
We’d been spoilt by our crowd-free travels thus far so the crowds at Ephesus probably seemed worse than they actually were but it did seem like an awful lot of people nonetheless.
Phoebe, Matt and I self-guiding
I have to be honest here as I wasn’t that taken with Ephesus when I visited in 2001 and a second visit hasn’t changed my opinion. Euan hadn’t been before and it was one site that he really wanted to see but even he was under-whelmed. Perhaps we’d been spoilt by other relatively unspoilt sites on our travels I don’t know, but the combination of the size of the site (its relatively small), the fact its been extensively rebuilt and the commercialised nature of the site just made it less appealing. What was amazing was that it used to be the main port town but the sea is now some 6km from the ruins.
The Library (completely rebuilt - obviously)
Amphitheatre (it held 25,000 people!)
This was quite cool – its Nike, the Goddess of Victory, but she was rather unceremoniously propped up among other bits and pieces of stone
A sign on the pavement indicating where the brothel was. Apparently the writing said “Follow me…” and you can just see the heart filled in with dots
Selçuk itself is a nice town with lots of resident storks who had the best accommodation in town.
This is a bit random but it was parked just down the road from our pension and really looked like it was a bonfire waiting to happen as it was completely filled with wood and wasn't going anywhere fast
We were at a bit of a loose end for the afternoon so headed to the beach which was the best way to spent a hot day and even the sea was warm but it set us up nicely for our overnight bus trip to Istanbul that evening.
View Larger Map
Ephesus has a great history, with the city founded in 900 BC but the city has been razed a few times (the first time was apparently in 650 BC) and most of what is standing at the site has been rebuilt. What has not been rebuilt is almost unrecognisable but despite this, the site draws bus loads of tourists on a daily basis. It was incredibly hot while we were there, somewhere in the 40’s (the heat was clearly getting to a few folk and the ambulances were going to and from the ruins) and it was so hot I caught Phoebe sticking her head in the freezer when we went into a shop to buy a few beers.
We’d been spoilt by our crowd-free travels thus far so the crowds at Ephesus probably seemed worse than they actually were but it did seem like an awful lot of people nonetheless.
Phoebe, Matt and I self-guiding
I have to be honest here as I wasn’t that taken with Ephesus when I visited in 2001 and a second visit hasn’t changed my opinion. Euan hadn’t been before and it was one site that he really wanted to see but even he was under-whelmed. Perhaps we’d been spoilt by other relatively unspoilt sites on our travels I don’t know, but the combination of the size of the site (its relatively small), the fact its been extensively rebuilt and the commercialised nature of the site just made it less appealing. What was amazing was that it used to be the main port town but the sea is now some 6km from the ruins.
The Library (completely rebuilt - obviously)
Amphitheatre (it held 25,000 people!)
This was quite cool – its Nike, the Goddess of Victory, but she was rather unceremoniously propped up among other bits and pieces of stone
A sign on the pavement indicating where the brothel was. Apparently the writing said “Follow me…” and you can just see the heart filled in with dots
Selçuk itself is a nice town with lots of resident storks who had the best accommodation in town.
This is a bit random but it was parked just down the road from our pension and really looked like it was a bonfire waiting to happen as it was completely filled with wood and wasn't going anywhere fast
We were at a bit of a loose end for the afternoon so headed to the beach which was the best way to spent a hot day and even the sea was warm but it set us up nicely for our overnight bus trip to Istanbul that evening.
View Larger Map
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