The tour guide makes or breaks the trip. We got lucky, Mehmet was superb. History, anecdotes, imagination, consideration. He offered all. Drive to and from funeral, second driver a bit aggressive in heavy traArtemis a sadffic was only negative. Not big on leather shop and pottery stops, but both were fine and expected. Temple of Artemis a bit underwhelming, only a single column remains.

A really wonderful tour, where the first point to highlight was the fantastic guide Nizam, who all the time was very fun, informative, knowledgeable, polite and very attentive. Our first stop was to visit the ruins of the Temple of Artemis, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World! Then we visited the house where the Virgin Mary, mother of Jesus Christ, lived her last days, with the privilege of getting some holy water. Then we went to visit the main attraction of the fantastic ruins of the ancient city of Ephesus. This amazing site is really huge and very much impressive from what has been excavated so far, taking us back to the time when it was inhabited and the magnitude of this historic marvel of civilization. To finish, we visit the picturesque town of Şirince, which included a local wine tasting.

The entire tour was a lot of fun. We learned quite a bit about Turkey and it’s people, and got to see some amazing sites. We understand we were here during the off season and the lack of crowds was a fabulous bonus, allowing us to walk and look at our own pace.