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With the exception of Pompeii and some hard-to-reach ruins in Libya and Albania, EPHESUS is the largest and best-preserved ancient city around the Mediterranean. Not surprisingly, the ruins are mobbed in summer, although with a little planning and initiative it's possible to tour the site in relative peace. Certainly, it's a place you should not miss, though you may come away disappointed at the commercialization and the extent of the off-limits areas. You'll need three or four partly shady hours, and a water bottle. Originally situated close to a temple devoted to the goddess Artemis, Ephesus' location by a fine harbour was the secret of its success in ancient times, eventually making it the wealthy capital of Roman Asia, ornamented with magnificent public buildings by a succession of emperors. Later, after Christianity took root, St John the Evangelist arrived here, and St Paul spent the years 51 to 53 AD in the city. During the Byzantine era the city went into decline, owing to the abandoning of Artemis worship, Arab raids, and (worst of all) the final silting up of the harbour, leading the population to siphon off to the nearby hill crowned by the tomb and church of St John, future nucleus of the town of Selcuk. Approaching from Kusadasa, get the dolmus to drop you at the Tusan Motel junction, 1km from the gate. From Selcuk, it's a 3km walk. In the centre of the site (daily 8am-6.30pm; winter closes 4.30pm; $6) is the Arcadian Way , which was once lined with hundreds of shops and illuminated at night. These days it's generally closed in summer, since grass presents a fire risk. The nearby theatre has been partly restored to allow its use for open-air concerts and occasional summer festivals; it's worth the climb to the top for the views over the surrounding countryside. From the theatre, the Marble Street heads south, passing the main agora , and a Temple of Serapis where the city's Egyptian merchants would have worshipped. About halfway along is a footprint, a female head and a heart etched into the rock - an alleged signpost for a brothel - at the junction with the Street of the Curetes, the other main street. Inside are some fine floor mosaics denoting the four seasons. Across the intersection looms the Library of Celsus , erected by the consul Gaius Julius Aquila between 110 and 135 AD as a memorial to his father Celsus Polemaeanus, entombed under the west wall. The elegant, two-storey facade was fitted with niches for statues of the four personified intellectual virtues, today filled with copies (the originals are in Vienna). Just uphill from here, a Byzantine fountain looks across the Street of the Curetes to the public latrines , a favourite with visitors owing to the graphic obviousness of their function. Continuing along the same side of the street, you'll come to the so-called Temple of Hadrian , actually donated in 118 AD by a wealthy citizen in honour of Hadrian, Artemis and the city in general. Behind sprawl the Baths of Scholastica, so named after a fifth-century Byzantine woman whose headless statue adorns the entrance and who restored the complex, which was actually four hundred years older. On the far side of the street from the Hadrian shrine lies a huge pattern mosaic , which once fronted a series of shops. Nearby, a sign points to the terraced houses (an extra $6), housed under a hi-tech steel and glass structure to protect the amazingly well-preserved mosaics and murals of what were the houses of two very rich families. Further up Curetes, you pass the Temple of Domitian , the lower floor of which houses a mildly interesting Museum of Inscriptions (currently closed), on the way to the large, overgrown upper agora , fringed by a colonnade to the north, and a restored odeion and prytaneum or civic office.
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