Ephesus and Selcuk

In the morning, just after breakfast, we drove to the ancient city of Ephesus. Ephesus was an ancient Greek city, and later a major Roman city, on the west coast of Asia Minor, near present day Selcuk. It was one of the twelve cities of the Ionian League during the Classical Greek era.

In the Roman period, it was for many years the second largest city of the Roman Empire; ranking behind Rome, the empire’s capital. Ephesus had a population of more than 250,000 in the 1st century BC, which also made it the second largest city in the world.

Ephesus contains the largest collection of Roman ruins in the eastern Mediterranean. Only an estimated 15% has been excavated. The ruins that are visible give some idea of the city’s original splendour, and the names associated with the ruins are evocative of its former life.

After visiting Ephesus we continued to Selcuk to our hotel.En savoir plus