Visit the Library, Eat Pizza

Ephesus is the jewel in the crown of ancient Türkiye and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In its heyday, it was a prosperous Roman city, with around 300,000 people, and the capital of Asia Minor. It was also home to The Temple of Artemis, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and the magnificent Celsus library. This iconic building is plastered all over tourism marketing brochures, but the photos really don’t do it justice. The reality is way more awesome than the photos and is a ‘must-see’.
At the time it was one of the largest libraries in the Ancient World, along with those at Alexandria and Pergamon, and held around 12,000 ‘books’; manuscripts that were painstakingly hand-written on rolls of papyrus and stored in boxes. Like libraries today, visitors would select what they wanted to read, which the librarian (usually a scholar) would then fetch from the shelves and take to one of the sunny reading rooms where the visitor could relax and enjoy their ‘book’.
Ephesus is a huge site and there’s loads more to see than the just the library. It’s also been really well restored so it’s not difficult to imagine what the city was like in Roman times. There’s an enormous gladiator stadium, the public baths, the beautiful Pollio Fountain, the magnificent Temple of Hadrien, and the fantastically-preserved mosaics and frescos inside the Terrace Houses – and that’s just a few of its sights.
I wouldn’t normally recommend a guide as its often more fun to explore on your own but here, I think it’s really worth using a licenced guide to get the most from your visit. Guides can be hired at the South Gate ticket entrance.
Note: take drinks and snacks with you as there aren’t many places to buy anything on the site.

It’s the last day of the trip and time to eat Turkish ‘pizza’, if you haven’t already tried it. A pide is my favourite traditional street food and rivals a pizza in Italy any day. Like a pizza, it’s got a pastry base but it’s boat-shaped with rolled-up edges to stop the tasty filling escaping. In this busy local restaurant, you can see the pides being freshly made and you can choose a variety of toppings including lamb mince, sausage, spinach or mushroom, topped with melted cheese. Take care with the green chillis though as they can blow your head off. I recommended getting a glass of ayran (a savoury yoghurt drink) to cool your mouth down, if needed.

Stop here to stretch your legs and get a drink at this café with a lovely terrace and garden overlooking the reservoir.

A relatively new addition to the region’s extensive list of antiquities, Stratonikeia is a bit of a history ‘sandwich’ with structures from different periods overlaid onto each other. The ruins of an Ottoman village, complete with houses and shops sit next to a 19th Century mosque, under and around which lie the remains of a wealthy Roman and Hellenistic marble city. This site personifies the term ‘living history’. There are four families that still live around the ruins, selling tea and trinkets to visitors, as well as teams of archaeologists that are still uncovering different buildings.
For me, one of the highlights was learning that the city, during Roman times, operated a Gladiator school. You can see the ruins of what is believed to be the largest gymnasium in the country, where they trained, and the inscribed graves of those who didn’t survive the fights. Inscriptions include garlands (the ancient equivalent of a rosette) that indicate how many fights they won, as well as brief descriptions about the person. One gladiator is described as: "Vitalius, a brave man at boxing, lies here”.
Also worth checking out is the Roman agora, where the prices of goods and services are engraved on the walls (prices were fixed to counter inflation) and the large theatre, which is being restored.
To access the site, buy a ticket at the entrance. Note the site closes at 7pm.

This 20-hectare wine estate is set in the middle of a large olive grove surrounded by rolling hills. Established in 2013, it produces a range of ‘low-intervention’, award-winning zinfandel wines. You can try a selection of 3 or 4 of their wines in their tasting room, accompanied by a gourmet cheese plate (a selection of fresh and cured cheeses with pitta bread and homemade jams) – a perfect light supper before heading back to Bodrum.
No advance booking is necessary. Note the vineyard is closed on Mondays.

It’s the end of a 4-day tour where you’ve followed in the footsteps of ancient Romans, learned about the Turkish traditions of wine, olive oil and carpet-making, visited some fabulous caves, got scrubbed in a hammam, and tried some interesting and tasty foods. Brains aren’t to everyone’s taste but hopefully you’ve enjoyed the experience of eating this and some other traditional street foods.