Ephesus, Sirince and more! – a perfect day trip from Kusadasi, Turkey

Looking for a day trip on your Kusadasi Trip or a Cruise holiday? Look no further. We have curated an ideal day trip for you, packed with a bundle of variety – mesmerise at the historic ruin, escapade to a hillside town, watch the ceramic and carpet industry from the close quarters – all in a day!

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Kusadasi is a famous sea side resort in the west of Aegean Sea in Turkey.  Kusadasi is also an ideal place to explore Ephesus, an ancient city in Turkey.  We partnered with Okeanos Travel who made arrangements for us to do a a day trip from Kusadasi.  We decided on the itinerary and they made it possible for us.  

Oguz (our tour guide for the day) and the driver picked us up from the Kusadasi port and we started our journey in a air conditioned van.  They provided us with all the information leaflet about Kusadasi, Ephesus, and Turkey in general.  Here’s a snippet of our day trip.

Ancient city of Ephesus

Ephesus is one of the spectacular archaeological sites not only in Turkey, but all over the world.  While explaining the grandeur of Ephesus deserves a completely seperate post, we’ll try to give highlights of the tour here. The original city of Ephesus was said to be established on the Aegean coast, on the shores of the sea which today is located 8 kms away from the archaeological site.

Just along the coast of Ionia, a couple of kms away from Selcuk is the ancient Greek city of Ephesus. It was one of the 12 cities of classical Ionian leagues in the Greek classical era.  It came under the control of Roman empire in 129 BC.

During that period, the estimated population of the city was about 33000 to 56000 people . The area surrounding the Ephesus city was once a flourishing port, a centre for commercial trade, and a religious centre of the early Christianity. Today, the place is one of the spectacular historic tourist attraction in Turkey.

One of the biggest advantage of having tour guides are that they share so many interesting local stories which we can’t often find in travel books or guides. Our tour guide Oguz told us all the mythological stories and historical facts about the ancient city as we did the 3 hour tour traversing through the site. Some of the highlights of the tour include the Odeon theatre, Curetes street, Temple of Hadrian, Celcius library, Terraced houses, Trajan fountain and Epehsus theatre. We waved goodbye to the site and followed our journey to the next stop.

Check out our video tour inside Ephesus and don’t forget to subscribe to our YT channel

Sirince, a sleepy hillside village

We left Ephesus behind, and reached Sirince, a small village located 8 kms east of Selcuk town. We drove through the winding roads as we heard stories from our tour guide about the history of Olive trees and how vital it has been in the turkish family and their cuisine.  After a good 20-30 minutes, we reached the hilltop town named Sirince (prounounced as Shr-rin-je).

The town is said to have been established since the time of Ephesus city of formed.  The oldest building in this town is the tower dating back to days when Ephesus was inhabited. Originally, the town was named by Greeks as “Cirkince” (meaning ugly) with the intention to draw less attention from outsiders and to protect the livelihood. The new name Sirince was given in 1926 by the governor of Izmir province.

Sirince is a tourist hub and also a popular wedding destination.  While we spent only an hour here, we saw 2 newly-wed couples who were on a photoshoot on the streets. We walked the narrow windy streets that goes uphill seeing the myriad market stalls and shops that sold everything related to olive, wines, hand crafted souvenirs and evil eye.  Fruit wines are also very famous here. As we went uphill, we noted that the houses had a kind of rustic feel, and the women were knitting or making some wooden crafts for their stalls.

Ceramic shop and tour

We left the sleepy town behind and drove back towards Selcuk and stopped over the ceramic and quartz making shop.  They ran a workshop on how the ceramics are designed into a shape and painted into a final product.  It was interesting and a lot of hardwork too.  I tried my hands on rotating the ceramic wheel to make something in the shape of a bulb (but that turned into a cup shape!).  We also saw how they were painted, dried and then re-painted to created the finished product.  It was quite an interesting workshop.

Carpet Weaving workshop & Vegetarian lunch 

Our next stop is to a carpet weaving workshop, but before we can see the weaving process, we were presented with tasty turkish food. An all simple vegetarian menu we asked for, and we were delighted with what was presented before us – a variety of salads made from yogurt, and vegetables, bread and a huge watermelon for dessert.  After our sumptuous lunch, we were off to see the weaving process that was explained to us by the owner.

Here’s an insider video of carpet weaving in Turkey

Overall, this is a very insightful tour, and if you like heritage monuments and history, Ephesus is a must visit. Considering Kusadasi is one of the important ports for cruise holidays, and there are many tourists who come for holidays here, Ephesus makes a perfect choice as a day trip from Kusadasi. 

Stay in Kusadasi

You can either base yourself in Kusadasi, which is a large city, or around Ephesus to get a countryside feel. In Kusadasi, Ramada Resort and Doubletree by Hilton are the popular choices for families. We have also listed out some of the best resorts in Kusadasi and Ephesus for you to choose from.

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Disclaimer: We were hosts of Okeanos Travel. We were not compensated or asked to write a positive review. We only write what we experience. As always, all the opinions are our own.