Photo Essay & Guide – Visiting the ancient city of Ephesus, Turkey

A trip to Turkey is incomplete without a visit to the ruins of the ancient city of Ephesus. Ephesus (Efes in Turkish) was once one of the most important cities of the Roman Empire and one of the grandest cities of the ancient world. While it was at its peak grandeur under the Romans, it has a much longer history with many great civilizations i.e. Greek, Persian, Roman and Christian. Though in ruins today, it is still a must visit to see the beautiful temples, baths, palaces, homes, markets, streets and imagine the everyday lives of the ancient Romans.

Ancient ruins of Ephesus, Turkey

Spending a day in Ephesus and Selçuk, Turkey

While planning our trip to Turkey, our main aim was to include as many diverse activities and places as we could cover in the limited time we had. There were so many options to choose from that we were spoilt for choice and could not decide what to include in the current trip and what to keep for our next trip. Ultimately, we decided to make Ephesus (the most well preserved Roman ruin in the world) as the starting point of the trip; as we had not been to any Roman ruin yet.

Library of Celsus, Ephesus, Selcuk, Turkey

Planning tips for a one week trip to Turkey

We are just back from a week-long trip to Turkey and loved everything about this country and its diversity – from the epic and diverse landscapes, to the delicious vegetarian food, the beautiful mosques, so much ancient history and the awesome urban culture. While one week is definitely not enough to visit even the main sites here, we had limited leaves and decided to cover as much as we could in this time. And as always, left the rest for our next trip here 🙂

Hot Air Balloon at sunrise, Goreme, Cappadocia, Turkey