Meet at Kusadasi Harbor and continue to Ephesus Ancient City - Enter through the Magnesia Gate and begin a slow, downhill walk with your guide into the ruins of this Roman provincial capital. Your route takes you past the Odeon, the Celsus Library, the Temple of Hadrian, the Fountain of Trajan and the Great Theater. The theater had seating for 24,000, which was the site where it is believed St. Paul preached to the Ephesians and is used today for a local spring festival.

House of Virgin Mary - The Vatican has recognized this small house in the Solmissos Mountains as the final resting place of the Virgin Mary. A small shrine dedicated to St. Mary was found when the ruins of the house were first discovered.

Included :

• Transfer from airport or hotel and back
• Transportation by a comfortable AC non smoking Luxurious car / Van with professional driver.
• Professional and experienced licensed guide during the tours.
• Entry fees to the museums and sites.
• Parking fees.

Terrace Houses are located on the slopes of Bulbul Mountain, opposite the Hadrian Temple. Also called as “the houses of rich”, these houses were for the important and wealthy people of Ephesus, as only rich people could afford such houses.

The Hagia Sophia, one of the historical architectural wonders that still remains standing today, has an important place in the art world with its architecture, grandness, size and functionality.

The Hagia Sophia, the biggest church constructed by the East Roman Empire in Istanbul, has been constructed three times in the same location. When it was first built, it was named Megale Ekklesia (Big Church); however, after the fifth century, it was referred to as the Hagia Sophia (Holy Wisdom). The church was the place in which rulers were crowned, and it was also the biggest operational cathedral in the city throughout the Byzantine period.

The first church was constructed by Emperor Konstantios (337-361) in 360. The first church was covered with a wooden roof and expanded vertically (basilica) yet was burned down after the public riot that took place in 404 as a result of the disagreements between Emperor Arkadios’ (395-408) wife empress Eudoksia and Istanbul’s patriarch Ioannes Chrysostomos, who was exiled. The patriarch’s mosaic portrait can still be viewed at the tymphanon wall located in the northern part of the church. No remains have been recovered from the first church; however, the bricks found in the museum storage branded ‘Megale Ekklesia’ are predicted to belong to the first construction.

The second church was reconstructed by Emperor Theodosios II (408-450) in 415. This basilical structure is known to contain five naves and a monumental entrance; it is also covered by a wooden roof.

Topkapi Palace, Blue Mosque, Hagia Sophia, Hippodrome, Grand Bazaar visit will be visited in this famous İstanbul Tour

The Didyma was the third and largest temple that the Greeks built around the site of a natural spring, which they believed to be the source of the oracle’s prophetic power. The first temple was a humble structure that replaced a much earlier Carian sanctuary. In the 6th century BCE the people of nearby Miletus began construction on a second, much larger temple. Wider than and as long as the Parthenon in Athens, this second temple reflected the growing fame and influence of the oracle. This temple, however, was plundered and destroyed, either in 494 BCE by the Persian king Darius or in 479 BCE by his son and successor Xerxes. Legend has it that the sacred spring ceased to flow until none other than Alexander the Great passed through on a conquest of his own and re-consecrated the site in 331 BCE. Not surprisingly, the first recorded pronouncements of the reestablished oracle were in favor of the young Macedonian king.

While Alexander reopened the site at Didyma, his siege left Miletus heavily damaged and the tariffs levied against the citizens as punishment for their resistance financially crippled the city for decades. When Miletus finally began to recover - some thirty years after Alexander’s conquest - the citizens began construction on yet another temple at the site of the sacred spring. It is this third and final temple that is known today as the Temple of Apollo at Didyma or the Hellenistic Didymaion. As was common for Greek temples of such an immense size, construction continued for centuries and the temple was never completed; even in the late 4th century CE the temple lacked a pediment or a cornice and much of the sculptural ornamentation and even several of the massive columns remained unfinished. Nevertheless, the temple must have been a magnificent sight as even the ruins can leave the modern-day visitors awestruck.

Fundamentalists are sometimes horrified when the Virgin Mary is referred to as the Mother of God. However, their reaction often rests upon a misapprehension of not only what this particular title of Mary signifies but also who Jesus was, and what their own theological

forebears, the Protestant Reformers, had to say regarding this doctrine.

A woman is a man’s mother either if she carried him in her womb or if she was the woman contributing half of his genetic matter or both. Mary was the mother of Jesus in both of these senses; because she not only carried Jesus in her womb but also supplied all of the genetic matter for his human body, since it was through her—not Joseph—that Jesus “was descended from David according to the flesh” (Rom. 1:3).

Since Mary is Jesus’ mother, it must be concluded that she is also the Mother of God: If Mary is the mother of Jesus, and if Jesus is God, then Mary is the Mother of God. There is no way out of this logical syllogism, the valid form of which has been recognized by classical logicians since before the time of Christ.

Although Mary is the Mother of God, she is not his mother in the sense that she is older than God or the source of her Son’s divinity, for she is neither. Rather, we say that she is the Mother of God in the sense that she carried in her womb a divine person—Jesus Christ, God “in the flesh” (2 John 7, cf. John 1:14)—and in the sense that she contributed the genetic matter to the human form God took in Jesus Christ.

To avoid this conclusion, Fundamentalists often assert that Mary did not carry God in her womb, but only carried Christ’s human nature. This assertion reinvents a heresy from the fifth century known as Nestorianism, which runs aground on the fact that a mother does not merely carry the human nature of her child in her womb. Rather, she carries the person of her child. Women do not give birth to human natures; they give birth to persons. Mary thus carried and gave birth to the person of Jesus Christ, and the person she gave birth to was God.

Topkapı Palace was built by Sultan Mehmed II after he conquered Constantinople in 1453. The first palace constructed by him at the site of the Istanbul University, soon proved inadequate to meet the demands of Sultan`s administration. Thus, he ordered another palace to be constructed at the site of the Byzantine acropolis, with the Golden Horn, the Seraglio and the Sea of Marmara encircling it.

The palace was walled off from the city to provide the necessary security and privacy. The Topkapi Palace was not only the residence of the Sultans, it was also the administrative center from where all the judicial and executive functions were carried out. Later it also became a seat of art and culture.

Sirince Village, a combination of Turkish-Greek of 1920’s. The village was settled when Ephesus was abandoned in the 15th century, but most of what one sees today dates from the 19th century. The former name of the village was Cirkince, meaning “Ugly”. There is a story that its habitants gave this name on purpose as they did not want to be bothered by foreigners or to share the beauty of their village. The villages name was changed to Sirince (meaning “Pleasant”) in 1926 by the governor of Izmir Province.

Come across local women in the authentic narrow streets of the village, selling handcrafts of all kinds, olive oil and handmade soaps. The village is also famous with its wine and you have the opportunity to visit a wine house. You can taste and buy several kinds of wines, from apple to strawberry.

The history of Ephesus stretches out like a landscape, from its hazy and distant beginnings veiled in myth, to its later glory, as the Roman Capital of Asia. The name “Ephesos” was probably derived from the word “Apasas”, the name for the site in the late Bronze Age. A pre Greek name, most likely meaning bee, it is strongly supported by the popular symbolism of that most famous of goddesses, the Ephesian Artemis.Temple of Artemis The ancient author Strabo refers to the early populations as “Karians and Lelegians, whilst Pausanias relates the tradition of the Amazons of Thermodon founding the city, and raising a shrine to the goddess, whose protection they sought on several occasions.

A popular belief in its second founding by Androklos son of Kodros, the King of Athens, is attested to by architectural reliefs, which can still be viewed today in the nearby Selcuk/Ephesus museum

.

Translated into stone, the famous words of the Oracle of Apollo, telling where the city should be built, ” a fish shall show you, and a boar will lead the way”, celebrate the ancient story. Archaeological evidence has yet to support this myth, although geographical elements from the story share distinct similarities with the geography of the earliest settlements, where the finding of ceramics dating to Mycenean times further demonstrate the antiquity of the site. With a total population reaching 200,000 (1st Century AD), Ephesus’s successful development was largely due to certain geographical advantages. In its earliest times, the unusual feature of a beach with fresh water spring, provided ancient sailors with a valuable resource, whilst its possession of a sheltered harbour for ships travelling the Aegean trade routes, and location at the western point of one of the great land trade routes, ensured the city’s prosperity.

Ephesus was an ancient Greek city on the coast of Ionia, three kilometers southwest of present-day Selçuk in İzmir Province, Turkey. It was built in the 10th century BC on the site of the former Arzawan capital by Attic and Ionian Greek colonists. During the Classical Greek era it was one of the twelve cities of the Ionian League. The city flourished after it came under the control of the Roman Republic in 129 BC. According to estimates Ephesus had a population of 33,600 to 56,000 people in the Roman period, making it the third largest city of Roman Asia Minor after Sardis and Alexandria Troas.