REPORT BY HENRY TENBY

In September of 2018, we had pleasure to visit the ancient city of Ephesus in the Izmir Aegean region of Turkey. We did it as a full day trip from Cesme which is where we were staying for our 5 day mini holiday. As we had a rental car it was about an hour and half drive from our hotel in Cesme to the Ephesus visitors parking lot. As it was mid September, it was still plenty hot, probably in the low to mid 30s, but a lot less punishing than mid summer temperatures.

Let me me say that you need to plan a full day trip to visit Ephesus. We arrived around 1100 am, and it was 5 pm by the time we were back in our car heading back to our hotel in Cesme. I should add that we also did a side visit to the nearby Virgin Mary’s home, which was also worth visiting and very interesting.

As for Ephesus, what can I say: it was nothing short of amazing as you can see from the two videos posted below. I have been Pompei, which was also interesting, but the extend of the ruins at Ephesus is far greater than Pompeii, reason being the Pompeii was destroyed in a volcano and Ephesus was not. That said, the extent of the ancient city that you can stroll through is a memory of a lifetime. You can walk on the same cobbled streets thats Mark Anthony and Cleopatra walked on, and a visit to the terraced houses is a must. It costs a few dollars extra and as shown in my video, it as an amazing view of how inhabitants lived in their homes in ancient times some 2000 plus years ago.

The theatre, colosseum and of course the library are major highlights of Ephesus. We really took our time from start to end of our self guided walking tour of the city, and it took us several hours. I would not want to be there with a tight time schedule as you really need the time freedom to enjoy your visit at your total leisure.

In my video I stand to be corrected. I state that ancient Greek inscriptions date from the pre-Roman Greek era pre Chris. This is not correct. Rather, during Roman control of the city 2000 years ago and in the first and second centuries, Ephesus was actually a bilingual city where both Latin and Greek were spoken by the population. And for this reason, we see both Latin and Greek written characters on various ruins of the period. In conclusion, I thoroughly enjoyed my visit to Ephesus and look forward to seeing other ancient ruins that Turkey has to offer on both the Aegean region and the Mediterranean region in the coming years.