Your private guide will meet you at Kusadasi port with a sign written “Your Name“ on it, anytime you want. After greeting, we will have 20 mins drive to the Ephesus area. We will start visiting one of the main highlights in Turkey, Ephesus, one of the 12 cities of the Ionian League (an ancient Greek district on the western coast of Asia Minor), which is located near Izmir. As a port city it was a major departure point for trade routes into Asia Minor.
Walk through history along marble streets lined with wonderful public buildings, among them the Baths of Scholastica, the Library of Celsus; it was built at the beginning of the 2nd century A.D. by Gaius Julius Aquila to be a memorial to his father Gaius Julius Celsus Polemanus, the proconsul of the Province of Asia. The Temple of Hadrian and the Grand Theatre are two of the most impressive buildings in Ephesus. The Grand theatre was built in the 3rd century B.C and it was later expanded to 24.000 spectators by the Romans in the 1st century A.D.
The House of the Virgin Mary is located on the Aladag Mountains, 5 miles away from Ephesus. At the third Ecumenical Council in 431 AD in Ephesus, it was claimed that Mary came to Ephesus with St. John in 37 A.D. and lived there until she died in 48 A.D. After the discovery of the house, the Archbishop of Izmir declared it a place of pilgrimage in 1892. On July 26, 1967, Pope Paul VI visited this place and prayed there. We will stop at Artemis Temple where used to be one of the seven wonders of the ancient world as our last stop before drive back to Kusadasi town center and port.
The end of our services.
