We had a wonderful trip to Turkey. We started out in Istanbul, then Cappadocia in central Turkey, and many archaeological sites within a 2-hour drive from Izmir to the south. We’ve traveled a number of times in Europe to Italy and Spain, solely using Rick Steves’s guidebook. We visited popular cities where most people spoke English, so our smattering of high school level foreign languages were never needed. However, this is not the case in Turkey—not even in Istanbul. Most people do not speak English and Turkish is a fairly difficult language to learn. We went to Cappadocia as an add-on with a cruise we took. However, in order to see all the sites we wanted to see in southwestern Turkey, we decided to hire a RS recommended, licensed local guide. In retrospect, this turned out to be a very good decision for many reasons besides obtaining information about the sites we saw.
During our cruise we opted for our guide when we visited Ephesus. We spent the entire day touring Ephesus, The Virgin Mary’s House and St John’s Basilica. Our guide gave us the history of these sites as well as going deeper into the Christian history, which was our motivation for this travel.
Post cruise and post Cappadocia, we flew to Izmir and stayed in a beautiful boutique B&B in Selcuk that our guide found for us.
On day one, we drove a couple hours from Selcuk to see Colossae, Laodicea and Hierapolis. Colossae was a place we wanted to see although it is unexcavated. However, we could not have seen it without our guide because there was a guard (likely to prevent theft and vandalism). Our guide provided information about Colossae even though it is not an excavated site and not developed for tourists. He has already visited these types of places on his own to satisfy his love of archeology. Then a quick drive to Laodicea where we saw the recently completed restoration of a large 4th century church, now a main attraction. Other interesting structures at Laodicea include the west theater, north theater, sacred agora and temple to Apollo. A lot was packed into Laodicea’s two square miles. Various sources online say the Turkish government aims to make Laodicea a destination as popular as Ephesus. Our last site that day was Hierapolis and the Hot Springs of Pamulkalle right next to Hierapolis. This ancient city covers about four-square miles and contains the tomb of St. Philip, Church of the Holy Sepulcher, and a Roman amphitheater. Get ready to hike up a long hill! We ended our day by dipping our toes into the warm hot spring waters of Pamulkalle.
The second day out of Selcuk we saw Priene, Miletus and Didyma. Priene is a well-preserved 4th century city high up on the mountainside (get ready to climb!). It boasts a theater, a Byzantine church, a temple of Athena, a synagogue, an agora, a parliament building and more. Miletus is mentioned in the book of Acts where St Paul wrote to the elders of Ephesus. It has the most intact bathhouse in Turkey. One can envision this huge, magnificent bathhouse in its day. Our last site was Didyma which has an impressive temple to Apollo. Although never completed, many of the massive columns were erected, and one can get a feel for its sheer size and shows the stages of how the temples was erected.
We want to go to Turkey again and when we do, we'll go with a guide from the RS guidebook. We highly recommend that if you are on a cruise which stops in Kusadasi (Ephesus) and Canakkale (Troy or Gallipoli), hire a guide rather than take the cruise tour. You'll go deeper into the history which you wish to explore.
What a wonderful trip!