Selcuk

Selcuk is an inland town on the Kucuk Menderes plain in Turkey's Izmir province, and it lives in the shadow of what surrounds it. Ephesus lies about three kilometres away; the House of the Virgin Mary, the Basilica of St John and the site of the Temple of Artemis are all within the district. The town itself has a Byzantine fortress on a hill above it, a fourteenth-century mosque built out of Ephesus, one of the better archaeological museums in the country, and storks nesting on the aqueduct piers through the summer.

Where It Is

Selcuk sits roughly seven to nine kilometres inland from the Aegean, which lies to its west; the district's coastline is the long open strand at Pamucak. Kusadasi is to the south, about eighteen kilometres by road. Torbali is the district to the north, Germencik to the east and Menderes to the northwest. Izmir is around seventy-five kilometres north.

Ephesus

Ephesus was added to the UNESCO World Heritage list in 2015. Ionian Greeks settled the site around the 10th century BC; Lysimachus moved and refounded the city around 294 BC; and what visitors walk through today is overwhelmingly Roman work of the 1st and 2nd centuries AD.

The Library of Celsus, built around 125 AD, is the facade on every photograph of the site and once held some twelve thousand scrolls. The Temple of Hadrian on Curetes Street dates from the 2nd century AD. The Great Theatre, cut into the hillside, held around 25,000 people; the Odeon, of about 150 AD, seated roughly 1,500 and was used for council meetings as much as performances. The Terrace Houses, the homes of the city's wealthy, sit under a modern protective roof and carry a separate ticket — their painted walls and mosaic floors are the closest thing at Ephesus to seeing how anyone actually lived.

The Religious Sites

The House of the Virgin Mary stands on Bulbul Dagi above Ephesus. It is a Catholic pilgrimage shrine and is visited by Muslims as well. On Ayasuluk Hill in Selcuk itself, the Basilica of St John was raised by the emperor Justinian in the 6th century over what was held to be the tomb of the Apostle John; enough of the ground plan survives to read the scale of the building it once was.

Isa Bey Mosque and Ayasuluk Fortress

The Isa Bey Mosque was built in 1374-75 for Isa Bey of the Aydinid beylik by a Syrian architect, Ali son of Mushaimish of Damascus. It is beylik-period work drawing on both Seljuk tradition and Syrian Umayyad models, built of cut stone, marble and brick, with a great deal of material lifted straight from Ephesus. Above it stands the Ayasuluk Fortress, also called Selcuk Castle: Byzantine construction of the 6th century, rebuilt in turn by the Aydinids and the Ottomans, with a view over the whole plain from the walls.

The Town and Around It

Selcuk has a Saturday market, traditional restaurants around the centre, and the usual run of cafes for the hours between sites. A hamam is an easy afternoon after a morning on the Ephesus marble.

Sirince, eight kilometres east at around 400 metres, is the standard half-day trip out of town — a hillside village of cobbled lanes among vineyards, peach orchards and olive groves, known for its fruit wines. It faces inland, so there is no sea view from it; the hills and the orchards are the view.

Pamukkale and Hierapolis are 180 to 200 kilometres away, two and a half to three hours in each direction. Organised day trips from Selcuk exist and run about eleven hours door to door.

The Coast, and Getting Afloat

Selcuk town has no harbour, jetty or anchorage of any kind. The ancient harbour of Ephesus silted up completely — the site now sits some three kilometres from open water — and the district's only sea frontage is Pamucak, an open beach with no shelter for a boat.

Pamucak runs for somewhere between seven and twelve kilometres depending on the source, and what distinguishes it is how undeveloped it is rather than how busy: sand, water that stays shallow well out from the shore before deepening, and few facilities. That suits families. The crowds go instead to Kusadasi's Ladies Beach and Long Beach.

Boats use Setur Kusadasi Marina, eighteen to twenty kilometres away and about half an hour by road. It has 457 berths afloat and 150 ashore, fuel, customs clearance and a technical yard, and the next full-service marinas — Teos at Sigacik and D-Marin Didim — are distant enough that Kusadasi is effectively the base for this stretch of coast. From a berth there the Selcuk sites are a half-hour taxi ride, which is what makes the town worth a visit if you're chartering a gulet in Turkey and not only on a land itinerary.

One adventure activity is genuinely based in Selcuk: a tandem skydiving operation flies from the local airfield, with jumps over Ephesus from around 10,000 feet. Quad safaris, diving and the Adaland waterpark are all run out of the Kusadasi area instead, twenty to thirty-five kilometres away.