Hotel Tricks

One thing we really have to emphasize is the breakfast at the hotel, so the best advice is to come when very hungry and with lots of time on hand. Definitely not your average continental spread, it’s an enormous multi-dish Turkish ‘kahvaltı’ feast of homemade jams, pastries, local cheeses, olives, eggs—the list goes on and on. This is both cultural and culinary; it’s so big that you probably won’t even find the need to have lunch, which would be great for your budget for the rest of the day.

One smart way to get the most out of your visit to Ephesus is to go right when it opens in the morning or about two hours before it closes in the late afternoon. This way you can sidestep the worst of midday heat and, above all, the hordes that pour off the cruise ships and tour buses. Another good trick is to take a cheap taxi up to the “upper gate” and zigzag your way downhill through the site, coming out at the “lower gate,” where there’s another taxi or dolmuş back to Selçuk.

Perfect for cheap and easy day trips, ‘dolmuş’ (minibus) service can be found everywhere.From Selçuk central bus terminal, there are 20 minutes by ‘dolmuş’ up into the mountains to the House of the Virgin Mary-a very important pilgrimage site. On the other way, it is a 30 minutes ride by dolmuş to the popular seaside town of Kuşadası for something different in ambiance or beautiful Pamucak Beach for a swim in the Aegean Sea.

For more sightseeing charm and less archaeological interest, take short trips out of İzmir. One such is a dolmuş or taxi ride to Şirince, an attractive little hilltop village not far away. There's a cobblestone main street and traditional houses in all shades of pastels, under which terraced apricot orchards and olive groves fall to the valley floor below. You can wile away a few hours simply ambling around tasting samples of the village's many fruit wines amongst fantastic panoramas of surrounding olive groves and orchards. It's a great little trip, very effortless, and gives such a nice (and convenient) change from the ruins.