4-day Small-Group Ancient Tour Ephesus, Pamukkale, Pergamum

Kusadasi to Ephesus

Your tour guide will meet you at your hotel. After greetings, you will be driven to Ephesus region.

First stop will be the House of Virgin Mary. It is written in the bible that Jesus entrusted his mother to his beloved desciple St. John the evangelist. After the crusifixion of Jesus, St. John and Mary escaped from Jarusalem because of the torture to early christians and came to Ephesus and spent her final years at Ephesus.

It is time to visit famous ancient city of Ephesus walking through history along marble streets lined with wonderful public buildings, among them The State Agora, Odeon, Memnius Monument, the Temple of Domitian, , Polio Fountain, Curetes Street, The Trajan Fountain, The Baths of Scholastica, Hadrian Temple, Latrina, Celcus Library, the gate of Mihridates and Mazues, Commercial Agora and The Grand Theater are two of the most impressive buildings in Ephesus. Grand theatre was built in 3rd century B.C and it was later expanded to 24.000 spectators by the Romans in the 1st century A.D.

We will complete our tour after visiting Temple of Artemis where is the one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. The temple was dedicated greek fertility goddess Artemis and built in 3rd BC. According to its giant size and being the first temple made of marble, a Greek poet named Antipater listed it one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.

Drive to Kusadasi to drop you off to your hotel for overnight in Kusadasi.

Kusadasi - Pamukkale - Kusadasi

09.00 a.m. After breakfast, pick up from hotel and departure to Pamukkale. This drive will take around 2,5 hours.

Discovery of Travertine terraces and Hierapolis. The travertine terraces at Pamukkale are one of the most spectacular natural wonders we ever have seen from various mineral springs in a vast white cliff side, about 200 m overlooking the plain, calcite-laden waters have dripped down over a series of terraced levels and created a fairyland of bizarre solidified cascades and shell-shaped basins. It looks like creations from snow or like balls from cotton, which gave the scenery the Turkish name Pamukkale (cotton castle): Moreover the water in the basins is changing its color according to how the light enters.

Drive back to your hotel in Kusadasi. This will take around 2,5 hours.

Kusadasi - Priene - Miletus - Didyma - Kusadasi

09.00 a.m. After breakfast, pick up from your hotel and depart for the ancient Anatolian-Greek city of Priene in the forest overlooking the fertile Meandros Valley. Priene was an ancient Greek holy city and the home of an important temple of Athena.

Continue to Miletus, one of the most important commercial and governmental cities from 700 BC to 700 AD among all the ancient Ionians cities. We will discover the Roman Theatre and the magnificent Faustina Baths.

Last, but not least, we arrive in Didyma. Here you will find the largest Ionic Temple in the world, that of Apollo. Also in Didyma lies the huge, cracked head of Medusa which long ago fell from the frieze. Drive back to your hotel in Kusadasi.

Drive back to your hotel in Kusadasi.

Kusadasi - Pergamum - Kusadasi or Izmir Airport

Pick up from your hotel at 08:30 and drive to Pergamum around 2 hours.

Arrive to Pergamum, actually called Bergama. It is one of the sites of the Seven Churches of Asia [Rev. 1:11; 2:12]. Here we explore the impressive Acropolis, the steepest theatre in the world, see the Altar of Zeus which is mentioned as the «Throne of Satan» in the book of Revelation, the marble columns of the Temple of Trajan and the Library which was foremost in the world and was long a rival of the equally famous Library of Alexandria in Egypt. Its wealth of volumes was estimated at over 200,000. It inspired the invention of parchment.

After Acropolis, we will continue with the Asklepion, famous medical centre of classical times.

End of the tour we will drive back to Kusadasi and drop you off to your hotel.