Ephesus opens at eight. Your ship sails at four.
Which tour walks you through the gate without queueing, what the Terrace Houses cost on top, and whether Pamukkale is worth eleven hours in a minibus. Reviews of every tour you can book in Kusadasi.
Ephesus, the chapel on Bulbul Mountain, the travertines, and a buggy in the dust.
The four days a first week in Kusadasi is built out of. What each one costs, and how long it holds you.
01The main eventSKIP-THE-LINE: Group & Private Ephesus Tour ENTRY FEE & LUNCHEphesus with the entry fee already in the price, in a small group or on your own. The cheapest honest way through the turnstile.
02The port-day versionFOR CRUISERS: Skip The Lines PRIVATE EPHESUS TOUR &On Time ReturnA private car, entry booked ahead and a driver who watches the sailing time. Built for a day with a hard deadline on it.
03The long day inlandFull-day Pamukkale and Hierapolis Tour from Selcuk or KusadasiWhite terraces and warm water at Pamukkale, with Hierapolis on the ridge above. Three hours each way, so it takes the whole day.
04The one without ruinsGuided Buggy Adventure TourA buggy on the dirt tracks behind the town. Three hours, and you come back the colour of the road.
Every tour here ends at the same gate. What changes is the way in.
Three hours or a whole day, a coach seat or a car, the site alone or the site plus what the guidebooks bury on page four. The price gap between them is smaller than you would think.
Ephesus first. Then Selcuk, the coast road, and the drive to Pamukkale.
Everything worth a day sits inside a two-hour radius of the pier: an ancient city, a hill town with a museum, a national park with swimming, and one long inland run to the terraces.
A Kusadasi port call is six hours. Ephesus takes four of them.
Every shore excursion →
The pier is on the edge of town and the ancient city is a twenty-minute drive from it, which is why almost every ship-day tour here is really the same tour with a different vehicle in front of it. What you are choosing is the group size, the guarantee, and how much of the afternoon is left.
The on-time return promise
Independent operators here sell the return time as the product, and they organise the day backwards from it. A ship tour does the same thing at roughly twice the price.
Entry bought before you arrive
On a two-ship day the line at the lower gate is the slowest part of the morning. A tour holding the tickets walks past it, which is most of what the extra ten dollars buys.
A car for the group, not a seat on a bus
Priced per vehicle rather than per head, so four people pay what two would on a coach. It also means you leave the site when you have had enough of it.
What everyone in Kusadasi ends up booking.
The whole Kusadasi catalogue →The days out that carry more travellers than anything else on this coast, and what earns each of them the slot.
1
For Ship Guests:BEST SELLER EPHESUS PRIVATE TOUR & On Time Return
Spend about five and a half hours with a private English-speaking guide and driver exploring Ephesus, the Terrace Houses, the Virgin Mary’s House, and the Temple of Artemis. Guides such as Hakan, Banu, Omer, and Metin have tailored visits to fit each group, with shopping and lunch stops optional.
From · $39
Read our review →
2
ALL INCLUDED: Ephesus Ruins, Mary’s House Tour incl ENTRY TICKETS
from $59
3
Ephesus Temple of Artemis and House of Mary Private Half Day Tour
from $15
4
PRIVATE TOUR FOR CRUISERS: Mary’s House (Meryemana) and Ephesus
from $29
5
Top-Rated: Ephesus & Artemis Tour for Cruisers WITH ENTRY TICKETS
from $20
6
SKIP-THE-LINE: Group & Private Ephesus Tour ENTRY FEE & LUNCH
from $7
7
All Inclusive Private Access Ephesus Tour (SKIP-THE-LINE)
from $67
8
ALL INCLUSIVE Private Ephesus, House of Virgin Mary with lunch
from $169
What a day out of Kusadasi actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. The ancient city is the cheap end of this list, and the minibus to Pamukkale is the expensive one.
Group entry to Ephesus, the museum in Selcuk, a hamam, a morning on a quad.
Private cars for a port day, the Pamukkale run, biblical guides and lunch stops.
Whole-vehicle bookings, fly-in day trips and the multi-site circuits inland.
Pamukkale is a three-hour drive that people still call the best day of the week.
Calcium terraces the colour of chalk, filled with warm water you walk through barefoot, and the ruined spa city of Hierapolis on the ridge behind them. Departures are early because the coach has to be back by dark.
Every Pamukkale day trip →
Past the last ruin the road turns towards the water.
The peninsula south of town is national park: pine down to the sea, coves reached by boat, and reef in the twenty metres off Guvercinada. The tour boats leave from the marina in the morning and hand out lunch somewhere quiet at one.
Selcuk is where the ruins keep their leftovers.
Eighteen kilometres inland, under a Byzantine castle: the museum that holds the Artemis statues, the basilica built over the grave of St John, and one column standing in a field where the Temple of Artemis used to be. Most Ephesus tours pass it. The good ones stop.
- 1Full-Day Ephesus Tour with Lunchfrom $113
- 2Pamukkale Small Group Tour From Kusadasi or Selcuk Hotelsfrom $72
- 3Daily Ephesus and Virgin Mary House Tour with Lunch Includedfrom $130
Three things you cannot see anywhere but Ephesus and Selcuk.
Roman streets survive all over the Mediterranean. Painted rooms with the plaster still on the wall, the goddess who was worshipped here, and the grave a basilica was built around do not.
The Terrace Houses
Halfway up the marble street, under a modern shelter, are the houses of the people who ran the city: mosaic floors, painted walls, marble panelling, a private courtyard each. They need a second ticket on top of site entry and they are worth it, because this is the only part of Ephesus where the rooms still have their surfaces.
- 13-Hour Private Ephesus, Terrace Houses, Cruiser Only★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 274 reviews
- 2ALL INCLUSIVE Private Ephesus, Terrace Houses tour with LUNCH★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 203 reviews
- 3Traveler’s choice: Ephesus, Terrace House Tour WITH TICKETS★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 59 reviews
Artemis of Ephesus
One column stands in a flooded field where one of the seven wonders used to be, and everything else went into the walls of later buildings. The two statues that survive, covered in what may be bulls or bees or breasts depending on who is guiding you, are ten minutes away in the Selcuk museum.
- 1Ephesus Temple of Artemis and House of Mary Private Half Day Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,573 reviews
- 2Top-Rated: Ephesus & Artemis Tour for Cruisers WITH ENTRY TICKETS★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,184 reviews
- 3SKIP-THE-LINE: Group or Private Ephesus & Artemis Tour with LUNCH★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 462 reviews
The Basilica of St John
Justinian built a six-domed church over a grave the early Christians said was the apostle’s, on the hill below the castle at Selcuk. The domes are gone and the columns were re-erected, but the marble tomb slab is still there in the middle of it, with the Isa Bey mosque and the aqueduct in the same view.
- 1Kusadasi Shore Excursion: Private Tour to Ephesus including Basilica of St John and Temple of Artemis★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 32 reviews
- 2Private Ephesus, St. John Basilica, The House of Mary with Lunch★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 24 reviews
- 3Best of Ephesus Tour From Kusadasi: Temple of Artemis, St John Basilica, Isa Bey Mosque★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 20 reviews
Four bookings around Kusadasi that will not wait.
Most of this coast can be arranged the night before over a beer on Barbaros Hayrettin. These four run on ticket caps, sailing times and a road that only has one bus a day on it.
- 013-Hour Private Ephesus, Terrace Houses, Cruiser OnlyThe Terrace Houses need their own ticket on top of site entry, and only a small share of Ephesus tours include one.
- 02Pamukkale Small Group Tour from Kusadasi Port/HotelsThe terraces are a three-hour drive inland, so the minibus leaves once, early, and there is no second departure.
- 03FOR CRUISERS: Skip The Lines PRIVATE EPHESUS TOUR &On Time ReturnA port-day tour is timed against the all-aboard call, which is fixed before you dock and moves for nobody.
- 04Top Choice For Cruisers: Ephesus, Mary’s House WITH TICKETS+LUNCHThe chapel on Bulbul Mountain has no bus of its own. Getting there means a tour, a taxi, or a very long walk uphill.
There is no shade at Ephesus, and the marble holds the heat.
From June the site is a kilometre of white stone with the sun straight down on it, and the coaches all arrive between ten and one. The answer is the same every time: walk it early, then spend the afternoon somewhere with water or a roof. A hamam, a boat, the museum in Selcuk, a long lunch under a vine.
Kusadasi after the ruins: steam, a vine terrace, a long lunch.
Nobody spends a week here looking at Roman brick. The town keeps a hamam on most corners, the hills behind Sirince make a fruit wine that should not work, and lunch is included in half the tours on this site anyway.
By place — the coast and the road inland
By kind of day — ruins, water, dust or steam
Ephesus, the chapel, Selcuk, Sirince, then the drive to Pamukkale.
The newest reviews from around Kusadasi.
More recent write-ups →
Private Ephesus tour for Cruise Guests w/SkipTheLineTickets
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FOR CRUISERS: Highlights of Ephesus Tour (Skip-the-line)
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Ephesus & Temple of Artemis Private Tour from Kusadasi Port
Read our review →
Ephesus & Virgin Mary Tour from Kusadasi Port/On-Time Return
Read our review →
Ephesus & Mary’s House & Artemission Tour for Cruisers
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Ephesus&Sirince Village Tour w/wine tasting+LUNCH
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