A richly historical land with some of the best cuisine you will ever taste, the scenery from beaches to mountains, and the great city of İstanbul.
One of the quieter alternatives to the rumbling Bodrum city center is the Gümüşlük bay. Despite the glaringly visible inroads of modern tourism, tradition and tranquillity are partially preserved by local open-air vegetable markets and the rugged coastline, overlooked by scarcely...
Once we arrived at Lake Bafa in southwestern Turkey, we realized that the lake faces ecological catastrophe due to untreated industrial wastewater coming from factories in Muğla’s Bafa. However, We did not come for beach holidays, but to explore the village and nearby ruins of Herakleia...
It was an ancient sanctuary and seat of an oracle of Apollo. Before being plundered and burned by the Persians (494 BC), the sanctuary was in the charge of the Branchids, a priestly caste named after Branchus, a favorite youth of Apollo. The astonishing temple (🎫 50 TRY) was once the...
Miletus was an ancient Greek city in western Anatolia near the mouth of the Büyükmenderes River. Its mixed Hellenistic-Roman ruins are impressive (🎫 50 TRY). Before 500 BC, Miletus was the greatest Greek city in the east. It was the natural outlet for products from the interior of...
Another stop we made at the ancient city of Priene located 10 kilometers north of the Menderes River and 16 kilometers inland from the Aegean Sea, in southwestern Turkey (🎫 20 TRY). Its well-preserved remains are a major source of information about ancient Greek town planning. Priene...
Ephesus was the most important Greek city in Ionian Asia Minor. It is one of the grandest and best-preserved archeological sites in Turkey (🎫 200 TRY, Taxi to upper gate 100 TRY). Ancient Ephesus was a great trading city and a center for the cult of Cybele, the Anatolian fertility goddess...
Selçuk remains a relaxing place to stay. It´s a likable, down-to-earth place, mixing a traditional country feel with a tourist buzz and family-run pensions offering a taste of Turkish hospitality and home cooking (TAT restaurant – Lentil soup, Chicken goulash with potatoes – 60 TRY). It...
We had a pleasant stay in Turkey’s third-largest city with a welcoming laid-back lifestyle. It is one of the oldest cities of the Mediterranean and an important Aegean port since ancient times garlanded around the azure-blue Bay of İzmir. Excavations indicate a settlement...
To our surprise, one day at the resort town of Alaçatı, some 10km southeast of Çeşme, became our most expensive day in Turkey. The Greeks originally founded Alaçatı in the 17th century. After the defeat of the Ottomans in the Balkan Wars, Ottoman Muslim refugees fled to the western coast...
We did overnight next to the ruined capital of ancient Lydia, about kilometers west of present İzmir. Sardis (🎫 25 TRY) is strategically located on a spur at the foot of Mount Tmolus, it commanded the central plain of the Hermus Valley and was the western terminus of the Persian royal...