Ephesus tour - Kusadasi

[bennybear]

I’m sure he’d be happy to do something a little different.  He seemed pleased to do the ancient cities.   Hope you have a good experience too! 

[Vineyard View]

I am very glad to read this thread. We have visited Ephesus, Terrace Houses, , Sirince Village, Mary’s home,  a small town and tea house. We did this via private tour and cannot imagine doing otherwise. We will have two full days in Kusadasi Port on a B2B in May.  bennybear your suggestions sound perfect. Was this a full day visiting the three cities or a couple days?  
thank you

[cruisemom42]

22 minutes ago, Vineyard View said:

I am very glad to read this thread. We have visited Ephesus, Terrace Houses, , Sirince Village, Mary’s home,  a small town and tea house. We did this via private tour and cannot imagine doing otherwise. We will have two full days in Kusadasi Port on a B2B in May.  bennybear your suggestions sound perfect. Was this a full day visiting the three cities or a couple days?  
thank you

 

All three sites are close and can easily be done in a day with lunch. 

 

If you have two days, I also HIGHLY recommend going a bit further from Ephesus on one of your days. You could go to Hierapolis and Pamukkale -- two places side by side but very different. Pamukkale is a natural wonder, with mineral deposits down a gentle terraced waterfall that looks like snowdrifts. Next door is Hierapolis, a very evocative Roman site. They even have a swimming pool with ancient Roman columns in it that you can take a dip in on a hot day. 

 

Alternatively, consider visiting Aphrodisias, which was, in Roman times, a city that specialized in creating sculpture that was sent/used throughout the Roman empire. It has been extensively excavated over the past decade and is a very interesting place. (Includes an onsite museum with an incredible series of sculpted panels depicting various mythological scenes and Roman emperors.

 

[Vineyard View]

Cruisemom42- once again thank you!  I will research these suggestions as I am totally unfamiliar with them. I appreciate your advise as always. 

[bennybear]

5 hours ago, Vineyard View said:

I am very glad to read this thread. We have visited Ephesus, Terrace Houses, , Sirince Village, Mary’s home,  a small town and tea house. We did this via private tour and cannot imagine doing otherwise. We will have two full days in Kusadasi Port on a B2B in May.  bennybear your suggestions sound perfect. Was this a full day visiting the three cities or a couple days?  
thank you

We were in The same situation as this was our fourth visit.   The sites were magnificent, it was a relaxed day trip, around an hour each way.   We had time for a nice lunch.  Would highly recommend it, but be prepared the walk up to Priene is on uneven marble steps and it is about a ten to fifteen minute climb.  The other sites are mostly level. 

[Vineyard View]

Thank you bennybear for this further information - and heads up about Priene. 
I will begin looking into all these ideas soon. I appreciate all this Information. 

[sparks247]

Visited Ephesus 6 months ago 5 hr tour (small group) with Curiotravel via Viator, tourguide Mrs. Selda.

At our request they ommitted the stop at a rug factory. Enjoyed the tour.

 

[MAVIP]

@Oldies123 new thread about entrance fees Ephesus: 

• Ephesus: 11 Euro per person (72 Turkish Lira)
• House of Mary: 7 Euro per person (45 Turkish Lira)
• Temple of Artemis: Free of Charge
• Sirince Village: Free of charge
• Isa Bey Mosque: Free of Charge
• Terrace Houses: 6 Euro per person (36 Turkish Lira)
• Basilica of St. John: 3 Euro per person (18 TL)
• Museum of Ephesus: 3 Euro per person (18 TL)

but only payable cash in Turkish lira or f.e. Mastercard.

 

[Oldies123]

16 minutes ago, MAVIP said:

@Oldies123 new thread about entrance fees Ephesus: 

• Ephesus: 11 Euro per person (72 Turkish Lira)
• House of Mary: 7 Euro per person (45 Turkish Lira)
• Temple of Artemis: Free of Charge
• Sirince Village: Free of charge
• Isa Bey Mosque: Free of Charge
• Terrace Houses: 6 Euro per person (36 Turkish Lira)
• Basilica of St. John: 3 Euro per person (18 TL)
• Museum of Ephesus: 3 Euro per person (18 TL)

but only payable cash in Turkish lira or f.e. Mastercard.

 

Thank you very much for the info, I have now found the info I was looking for and have booked through TripAdvisor which includes the entrance fees.  Thank you again for your replies.

[boards]

Our experience with the Hal tour to Ephesus, several years ago, was the entrance fees were included in price.  It was wonderful inspiring tour.

[Hlitner]

We have been to Kusadasi five times (all on cruises).  The first time we took a Princess Cruise Lines excursion which was so bad that it turned us against cruise excursions (which we have generally avoided for the last 30+ years).  On subsequent trips we have rented cars, taken a local bus to Ephesus, and hired private tour/guides.  Because of the problems in Kusadasi for the past 3 years we will not talk about our tour company (have no clue as to their current status).   But a private tour is the way to go at this port unless you are adventurous (like us) and are willing to use local buses or a rental car.  We also enjoyed Prience, Miletus, and Didyma (been to those places twice).

 

Cruise line excursions are generally somewhat of a rip off.  They will usually cut your time at the great sites (like Ephseus) to take you to a carpet or jewelry factory (likely partially owned by the tour company).  

 

One other important hint about Ephesus.  No matter how you choose to go (cruise line excursion, private tour, or on your own) make sure you visit the Terrace Houses (this used to be skipped by many cruise line excursions). 

 

Hank

[MAVIP]

3 hours ago, Hlitner said:

One other important hint about Ephesus.  No matter how you choose to go (cruise line excursion, private tour, or on your own) make sure you visit the Terrace Houses (this used to be skipped by many cruise line excursions). 

 

Hank

You are absolutely right. Quite a few passengers on our cruise "missed" them.  That's a mistake.

[MAVIP]

And if you do not hire a private guide, think about buying the audio tour.

[dogs4fun]

We used Ephesus Shuttle several years ago - our tour included the Terrace Houses. We insisted on no stops for shopping and we were not taken to any leather shops, etc. 

http://www.ephesusshuttle.com/

 

[cruisemom42]

I have decided to go my own way for Ephesus this time. I unfortunately cannot find any guide that will provide the kind of in-depth info + no shopping stops that I want. However, it looks entirely doable to visit the site and the nearby museum on my own and I'll probably be happiest doing that anyway. 

[MAVIP]

1 hour ago, cruisemom42 said:

I have decided to go my own way for Ephesus this time. I unfortunately cannot find any guide that will provide the kind of in-depth info + no shopping stops that I want. However, it looks entirely doable to visit the site and the nearby museum on my own and I'll probably be happiest doing that anyway. 

Our cab driver stopped for shopping......to buy us a big box of baklava 😉

[Hlitner]

There is a good reason why I did not mention a specific private tour company even though we certainly had a terrific private tour a few years ago.  There have been some very big recent changes in Turkey and more specifically Kusadasi.  Up until the days of President Erdogen, the Port of Kusadasi would get about 1000 port calls a year plus many land-based visitors.  But in the past few years the situation in Turkey discouraged many tourists from visiting the country and substantially reduced the annual number of port calls.  Many of the best tour guides were left with little work, some left the area, others bided their time.  My point in the previous post was that recommending a local tour company today, based on what existed more then 2-3 years ago might be making a leap of faith that all has gone on as before.  Until we see a few more posts about the situation with current tour companies (preferably reviews of tours in the past year) it would seem that cruisers booking private tours are going to be the guinea pigs as to the quality of the current tours.

 

Cruisemom mentions going it on her own and that is what we did on 2 of our visits.  When we finally tried a local tour company we hired our own personal guide/driver (the cost was actually less then a large cruise line excursion) and requested a very educated guide that could give us a more in depth perspective.  Our guide had 2 University degrees (including archeology) and was also friends with the curator of Ephesus.  He did give us a different point of view and actually questioned some of the stories told by many guides....presenting some compelling facts.  We had a lot of fun, did zero shopping stops (we do not need to pay a guide to take us into a store which kicks-back money to the guide).  We had heard that the particular guide we enjoyed left Turkey (at least 3 years ago) to expand his horizons in Russia (he spoke fluent Russian, English and a few other languages).

 

Our best visit to Kusadasi was an overnight port stop (Prinsendam) that gave us two full days.  The first day we rented a car and drove several hundred miles in the region and it was an amazing experience that cost us less then $100 for the day.  We managed to visit the weekly market in Tire (one of the best ourdoor markets in the region since it was a Tuesday (market day).  We also drove over the Didyma, Miletus, and Priene (our 2nd visit to these sites) and were stunned by the changes from our previous visit (nearly 20 years earlier).   We were also surprised at what had happened to Sirence….which had changed from a quaint village to something akin to a tourist trap  We wonder what these places are like today, given the few difficult years with relatively few tourist dollars.

 

Hank

[Oldies123]

28 minutes ago, Hlitner said:

There is a good reason why I did not mention a specific private tour company even though we certainly had a terrific private tour a few years ago.  There have been some very big recent changes in Turkey and more specifically Kusadasi.  Up until the days of President Erdogen, the Port of Kusadasi would get about 1000 port calls a year plus many land-based visitors.  But in the past few years the situation in Turkey discouraged many tourists from visiting the country and substantially reduced the annual number of port calls.  Many of the best tour guides were left with little work, some left the area, others bided their time.  My point in the previous post was that recommending a local tour company today, based on what existed more then 2-3 years ago might be making a leap of faith that all has gone on as before.  Until we see a few more posts about the situation with current tour companies (preferably reviews of tours in the past year) it would seem that cruisers booking private tours are going to be the guinea pigs as to the quality of the current tours.

 

Cruisemom mentions going it on her own and that is what we did on 2 of our visits.  When we finally tried a local tour company we hired our own personal guide/driver (the cost was actually less then a large cruise line excursion) and requested a very educated guide that could give us a more in depth perspective.  Our guide had 2 University degrees (including archeology) and was also friends with the curator of Ephesus.  He did give us a different point of view and actually questioned some of the stories told by many guides....presenting some compelling facts.  We had a lot of fun, did zero shopping stops (we do not need to pay a guide to take us into a store which kicks-back money to the guide).  We had heard that the particular guide we enjoyed left Turkey (at least 3 years ago) to expand his horizons in Russia (he spoke fluent Russian, English and a few other languages).

 

Our best visit to Kusadasi was an overnight port stop (Prinsendam) that gave us two full days.  The first day we rented a car and drove several hundred miles in the region and it was an amazing experience that cost us less then $100 for the day.  We managed to visit the weekly market in Tire (one of the best ourdoor markets in the region since it was a Tuesday (market day).  We also drove over the Didyma, Miletus, and Priene (our 2nd visit to these sites) and were stunned by the changes from our previous visit (nearly 20 years earlier).   We were also surprised at what had happened to Sirence….which had changed from a quaint village to something akin to a tourist trap  We wonder what these places are like today, given the few difficult years with relatively few tourist dollars.

 

Hank

Many thanks for that useful info I had no idea of all this not having visited Turkey before.  Having now booked our tour I will definitely post how we went on etc

[bennybear]

I think it has been a very tough time for tour guides in Turkey.   We were extremely pleased with Levant Solmaz this past fall 2019.  His knowledge was impeccable, easy to understand and was totally willing to customize our tour to Priene, Miletus and Didyma.   We did no shopping and he was very personable.  

 

Hank I am curious to know how those sites have changed, we found them simply stunning and amazing.  Anywhere else they would’ve been overrun with tourists.