Kusadasi is a lively resort town especially during summer months due to Mediterranean Cruises and                        

European tourists with lots of entertainment places. 

It was nice to walk about in town with seabreeze in my face

and dancing my already stiff body in a club, after spending

8 hours on the bus from Canakkale to here..

Places of interests :

·         Basilica of St. John

·         House of Virgin Mary

By 8:30 AM we arrived in Kusadasi.  Hotel Ozcelik (http://www.kusadasihotels.com/ozcelik/) was a super-duper hotel, it's by the seaside!  My friend Leslie lost her passport and was sent back to Istanbul to contact the American Embassy - the embassy is closed on the weekend and we are leaving back to NY that Monday.  The most annoying that was that she blamed me that I lost it.  I would never hold anybody's passport.  Your passport is your responsibility.  I wanted to strangle her.

I enjoyed a full day of touring: Ephesus, House of Virgin Mary, a leather factory, and a carpet factory.  At the carpet factory, I learned a lesson of carpet weaving. OK, I can't do this as a life profession but it looks good enough on photo.  At the House of Virgin Mary, Mary supposedly spent her last 3 years there with Saint Joseph.   Ephesus is an arena built by the Greeks for art performances.  When the Romans took over it, it became a gladiator arena.  Beautiful!

We took another side trip to a leather factory.  I didn't buy anything because I have enough leather jackets at home.  But, they presented a Fashion Show for us, the tourists.  I was even pulled to join in as a 'model.'  My years of watching MTV finally paid off.  I worked that run way baby!  I've eaten good Indian food while on this tour - ahh... basmati rice and curry.

The spa lady at Hotel Ozcelik highly recommended to visit Pumakkaleh.  This is the lime stone rocks with steaming hot natural water from the earth.  I've seen an episode from Globetrekker tv and it looks out of this world.  Gotta check it out the next time I'm in Türkiye.

We returned to our ship first to drop off the shopping we had done earlier in the day and then headed back out to take a walk around the heart of the city. There were streets upon streets lined with shops, cafe's and restaurants, and we just wandered around aimlessly for a couple of hours. I noticed that many of the streets had small glass pieces of 'boncuk" or protection from the evil eye worked into the cobblestone. I thought this was particularly interesting and for a while I was walking around with my head bent down staring at the ground to see how many I could count. After about 79 or so I stopped counting.

After the sun went down, we could hear the muezzin calling everyone to prayer over the loudspeakers of a nearby Mosque. We admired the beautiful tilework around the mosque and watched as some people made their way to the mosque and men washed their feet in the faucets outside.

I especially loved the colorful lanterns hanging from the trees along the main shopping street and as I took photos, one shopkeeper came outside and helpfully told me to move further down the street to get a better angle of the lanterns and a better view of the street from there - thank you!

I stumbled across Mr Happy's place in 2005 and have been back twice since. The owner Hasan is the original Mr Happy and on the website it says come as a guest and leave as a friend and that truly is what you sense about this place. I feel like a member of the family when I stay here and it was amazing to return in 2006, a year after my first visit to have the staff remember me and treat me so warmly. The location is good right near the harbour (liman is Turkish for harbour!), rooms are good size, basic but clean, and the roof top terrace has great views and is the perfect spot for sunsets.

Cool clothes and comfy shoes are all you'll need when coming to visit the ruins of Ephesus. The tour will take you roughly an hour and a half or so, where you will be taken through with a local guide who tells you what everything used to be. The amphitheater was by far the most impressive, however I was unable to fit a photo in with my camera due to the immaculate size!

The one thing I liked a whole lot about this hotel was it was by the water. I love the beach. If you're a water loving person like I am then you would like the location. The room was decent. They can probably update it more though. The bathroom was clean and that's a good thing. I only stayed one night cause we were booked in another hotel the next night. Dinner was alright too. It was buffet style. I did like that we were seated by the pool. The ambiance was nice. The servers were attentive to you. What I mean is that if you wanted more kebab and got up to get it, you get back and your plate is gone. I don't know why that is. Its alright but my parents got irritated with that. It also was a little hard to communicate with them because they didn't speak really good english. We had to speak slow or ask our guide to speak for us. The hotel is good for a fellow traveller because you wouldn't be spending it at the hotel other then sleeping but be out and check out Kusadasi.

We stayed in Kusadasi for 2 days. It is a resort town on Aegean coast. Another good location with a lot to see and enjoy. Hotel Onura was great, had all the facilities but still don't leave ur luggage unlocked (i was robbed of $200). There are good enough shopping areas in Kusadasi, beach activities and food varities.

On our last day at Kusadasi we went straight to Pamukale, which is famous for its hot springs but it's not a fun place to go in summers. The temperature really gets you melting..infact i was looking for a cold springs..:) The water from these springs is taken through channels to a man made pool, Cleopatra pool, where you can enjoy a nice warm swim. It's also said that bathing in this water has a good effect from health point of view.

After spending few hours at pamukale, we went straight to Airport, i guess almost an hour drive, back to Istanbul.

Kuşadası is a resort town in the province of Aydın on the Aegean coast of Turkey, 90 km south of İzmir, and 71 km from the inland provincial capital of Aydın.

Kuşadası is near the ancient city of Ephesus and to other places of interest including Miletos, Didim and Pamukkale, and a short distance across from Kuşadası lies the island of Samos.

We had a meal with a gorgeous view. fried tilapia with other turkey food.

I spent a few days in Kusadasi last summer. It is an fantastic place for tourist. The first impression was that it much much bigger town than we thought. It is a tourist paradise. As I am not a party girl and I am not really keen on "tourist paradise" places, still enjoyed it a lot!!! Nightlife & entertainment: It is impossible to get board there! During the day we visited many places from there, hardly have any time to go to the beach. We went to the neighboring island Samos (Greece), Ephesus!, Scesme, Izmir, Pamukkale! (must see). Also to the AQA park (ADA LAND) what was really good fun and the view is fables from there! Despite we stayed with friends and family we went out to try different dishes also not only homemade. The food is amazing! (not expensive) If you want partying the best place to go. Impossible to count how many different nightclub, pub, restaurant are there. Most of them of course are in the center but we stayed in a place what was over the water at the beach. I cannot remember the name of it but we sow the fishes in the water from there and that was a really top place!

I got up at 6:00am so I could get a shower and eat breakfast before I disembarked on Turkish soil. We lucked out and our group was called off the ship first, so we proceeded to find our bus. After we found our bus we proceeded to the House of the Virgin Mary. When we arrived at the house, I was suprised on the size considering how old it is. When I entered the house I had a sense of calmness and tranquility. I had some of the biggest goosebumps in my whole life. Just imagine walking into the last recorded dwelling place of the Virgin Mary. After the House of the Virgin Mary, we headed to Ephesus, where Paul wrote to the Ephesians. There were some interesting things there including one of the biggest ampitheatres I have ever seen and a beautiful library front. After we were done with the tour, we headed back to Kusadasi where I picked up an England and Nederlands futbol jerseys. Then we boarded back on the ship and headed to Patmos, Greece. We got to Patmos and didn't see anything that intrigued us, so we went back on the ship and  put our swim trunks on so we could swim. I was in the water for about five minutes and I stepped on a piece of glass, so, that was that. I went back to the ship and doctored my foot up and took a nap. The nap was so rewarding being that we had absolutely no time to rest on the whole trip. I woke up around 6:00pm, went and picked up my passportand proceeded to get ready for our formal dinner. I shocked everyone with my zoot suit and Armani shades. We had a great time and after dinner the younger ones went to the discoteca. We had a great night of dancing and talking. I ended up getting to bed around 1:30am.

Ephesus is one of the most interesting of all the Greek cities on the Asia Minor Peninsula. The market is remarkably well preserved, as is the Agora. You can imagine exactly what it was like to be wandering through the market, and can sit in the Agora and imagine the public meetings that were held there. However, the highlight of the place is definitely the Library building with it beautiful facade. Just sitting there admiring the beauty of this building is one of the high points of my visit to Ephesus. While there is not much left to the Temple of Artemis, its importance should not be overlooked. This was one of the largest temples of the ancient world. While the structure itself is gone, the footprint of the building is clearly visible, and you can begin to imagine just how gigantic this temple was. No wonder the population of Ephesus rioted when they thought that the Apostle Paul was there to destroy their religion. A visit to Mary's basilica up on the hill is interesting, not just because it provides a connection to the Christian legend that Jesus' mother lived her last years in Ephesus, but also because it provides a nice overview of the city. You have to use your imagination to imagine Ephesus as a harbor since sedimentation from the river has actually silted up the surrounding coastline, and the coast is actually 3 kilometers from Ephesus now. It is a beautiful little walk.

Arrive:7am  Depart: 1Pm  Short stay ?  Must be non tourist stop.

 I had seen Adaland on the way into town the previous night, but got a better view of it in the morning. It’s a water amusement park - we didn’t get to go, of course - but what’s remarkable is that it’s on the side of a mountain. There are numerous water slides, and it’s obvious they offer great views. Our first stop of the day was at Meryemana, the house where the alleged Virgin Mary allegedly spent her last days. I wasn’t terribly impressed - it’s almost completely a reconstruction. At Troy I could at least tell myself someone was there, but at Meryemana there are no ruins - just the reconstruction. I don’t believe most of the story about Mary anyway, so the site just didn’t interest me much. (To calm the shocked, I acknowledge that there could have been a person or persons who might have done some of what is attributed to the character “Virgin Mary,” but I don’t believe in any of the religious aspects. I believe there was probably a person who may have vaguely resembled Jesus in actions, but I believe he was a respected person and teacher - I do not believe in his divinity.) Our next stop was Ephesus, and we spent a considerable amount of time there. Before entering the site I made an impulse buy of an $8 shirt - fortunately it looked good on me when I got it back to the hotel to try on. Our guide led us carefully through most of Ephesus, but there were so many other voices that I found it hard to concentrate on his. I heard a number of different languages and kept listening to them, and even other English-speakers (guides and tourists) distracted me. But his lectures at Ephesus are a good example of how amazing his knowledge is. Everything - names, dates, purposes, explanations - is all in his head, and he can recite all of it in his second language. My main impression from Ephesus is that it’s big, crowded, and dirty in parts - I got dust all over myself because I tried to scratch an itch on my lower leg through my pants using my foot, and got the brown dirt from my shoes onto my black pants. I did enjoy the site, though, and as I was eager to find a good souvenir I went to the shops at the exit. The sellers there were really aggressive there, but their favorite phrase was “looking is free.” Unfortunately, they said it so many times that I wanted to say “okay, thanks, now shut up and let me look.” With just a few exceptions, they all have more or less the same merchandise; everything is probably priced the same anyway so I paid $1 for a pack of 12 postcards (that’s been standard throughout Turkey) and $8 for a book - probably more than that volume is worth, but the one I wanted is $18 and I knew I couldn’t afford that. I bought some earrings at the restaurant we visited for lunch, and then we moved on to our afternoon tour. We visited a small village called Sirince, which has become a tourist spot - their primary income is now from tourism. There’s a 19-year-old boy there (he’s to join the army next year for his compulsory service) named Selçuk who has taught himself fairly good English and likes to greet the tourists as they arrive. He invited all 30-some-odd of us into his home, a habit his mother must be annoyed with by now. The house is 300 years old, you have to go outside to get to the kitchen, and the stairs are alarmingly shaky; the accents in their main room are family pictures and a small Furby toy. At the hotel my girlfriend was pretty tired, but I had seen the room service menu the night before and we’d agreed I could get something because it was so inexpensive. The menu indicated they had a variety of ice cream flavors, but when I called they only had a few so I ordered caramel. They brought it fairly quickly, and we shared it before my girlfriend fell asleep.

Located near the port of Kusadasi on the Aegean coast of Turkey, Ephesus is a major tourist destination for those cruising the Mediterranean.  Ephesus was the largest Roman city in Asia Minor.  Due to its immense size, only a fraction of the site has been excavated, but what remains is spectacular.

Cruise ships usually offer guided tours, but we found that our guide hurried us through the site too quickly to gain much appreciation of it.  If at all possible you should try to arrange a self-guided tour so you can explore Ephesus at your own pace.  That, or figure out what time your bus is leaving and split off from your group.  There's a lot to see and you don't want to be rushed!  Once inside, you're on your own as far as water or the W.C., so be prepared.  It's a good idea to bring something to drink.  Once the sun starts roasting all that marble it can become quite hot, and you sometimes end up clambering over rocks to get a better view.  In that respect the ruins are somewhat hands-on.

Although there are two entrances to Ephesus, most people enter via the upper entrance at the Agora.  This allows you to walk downhill through the rest of the city.  The Agora was the center of public life.  You can view the remains of temples, administrative buildings, and an odeon where theatrical performances were held.  Columns reconstructed from the original stone form a wide colonnade.  As far as the eye can see, blocks of hewn marble litter the landscape.  There is even a stone game board (now cracked down the center).  According to our guide, it was used to play backgammon.

Exit from the Agora is obtained via the Hercules Gate, two stone pillars that trisect a street leading down to the Library Square.  This gate was intentionally made too narrow for wheeled vehicles in order to prevent them from entering the Agora.  The path here can be somewhat steep.  As it is paved with marble, I imagine it could become quite a slippery slope in the rain.  The ancient Ephesians, who did not have modern hiking gear, scraped rough spots into the marble to improve traction for people walking downhill in sandals and togas.

Don't miss checking out the remains of the public latrines just off this street.  It was a gathering place and hang-out for the ancients.  In winter, the stone seats got quite cold, so wealthy Ephesians had their slaves sit there first to warm it up for them.

Near the Library Square are extensive remains of temples, baths and houses, but as soon as you see the Library of Celsus you will be drawn magnetically toward it.  This two-story structure has been painstakingly rebuilt from the original materials and is justifiably famous.  Unlike some historical sites where everything is roped off, you can walk right up to the library and step inside.  (It's prettier on the outside, but still brilliant.)

Once you reach the Library you're about half done with Ephesus.  Next to go are the main agora, where everyday commerce took place, and the massive theatre.  The theatre held 24 000 people and seems to be completely intact.  If you walk out on the stage you might be surprised by the acoustics which are still quite good.

Ephesus is famous not just for its historical associations with Hittites, Greeks, and Romans, but also as a center of early Christianity.  St. Paul preached in the Theatre of Ephesus and the Epistle to the Ephesians is part of the New Testament.  Ephesus also possessed a coliseum which was even larger than the Theatre, but this has not yet been excavated.

Ephesus was a major center of the worship of the goddess Artemis during Greek and Roman Times (St. Paul was run out of town by her devoted worshippers!).  The Temple of Artemis, one of the Seven Wonders of the World, was located here.  Today the temple is completely gone.  All that remains of the legendary temple is a single column in a grassy field.  The efforts of British archaeologists have recovered some artifacts which are now displayed in the British Museum.

My visit to Ephesus was one of the highlights of my vacation in the Greek Isles.  It was an opportunity to see the remains of a major city which, unlike Rome and Athens, has not been encroached on by modern life.  I feel very privileged to have had the chance to visit.  Definitely recommended.