My Kusadasi Logbook

Every single time our Royal Caribbean ship glides into Kusadasi and I catch my first glimpse of that beautiful turquoise Aegean coastline with the castle on Pigeon Island, I feel a rush of excitement because I know I'm about to have one of the most mind-blowing historical days of my entire cruise. Ephesus is hands-down the best-preserved ancient city in the eastern Mediterranean — maybe in the world — and cruisers consistently rank Kusadasi as the number one or two port in the entire Mediterranean region. I've been seven times now, and I still get goosebumps walking through those gates.

My perfect Ephesus day starts as early as humanly possible. I'm off the ship by 7:30 or 8:00 a.m. and through the upper entrance to the ruins before the sun gets intense and the crowds get thick. That first hour is magic — you have the marble Curetes Street practically to yourself, the morning light is ideal for photos, and you can actually hear the silence of two thousand years pressing in around you. I'm walking where emperors walked, where merchants haggled, where St. Paul stood and preached to the Ephesians about a new way of living. The marble beneath my feet was quarried and laid by hands that have been dust for millennia, and yet here it is — smooth, white, enduring.

I always start at the top and walk downhill, passing the Odeon (small theater), the Temple of Hadrian with its intricate carvings, the public latrines (surprisingly fascinating), and then rounding the corner to see the Library of Celsus for the first time. That moment — when that two-story facade appears at the end of the street with its columns and statues gleaming in the sun — is one of the great reveals in all of travel. I've seen people actually gasp. Built in 117 AD as both a library and a monumental tomb for Gaius Julius Celsus Polemaeanus, a Roman senator and governor of Asia, it once held 12,000 scrolls, making it the third-largest library in the ancient world after Alexandria and Pergamon. The facade is adorned with four statues representing Wisdom (Sophia), Knowledge (Episteme), Intelligence (Ennoia), and Virtue (Arete) — the qualities Celsus embodied. Standing before it, I feel the weight of human achievement, the fragility and endurance of knowledge, the care with which ancient civilizations honored their dead and their living both.

After the Terrace Houses, the Great Theatre is essential. This 25,000-seat amphitheater is where St. Paul preached to the Ephesians, where the silversmiths rioted against him (Acts 19:23-41), where gladiators and actors performed for the masses. The acoustics are still perfect — guides demonstrate by dropping a coin on the stage that you can hear in the top row. I always climb to the highest seats for the view over the ancient harbor (now silted in and farmland) and to feel the scale of what this city once was: a Roman metropolis of 250,000 people at its height, the fourth largest city in the empire, a crossroads of commerce, religion, and culture. Sitting there in the upper rows, I imagine the roar of the crowd, the heat of the Mediterranean sun on stone, the voices of those who came here seeking entertainment or enlightenment or both. This is where history was made, where the gospel was proclaimed, where empires rose and fell. The silence now is deafening.

Beyond Ephesus itself, I always try to fit in the House of the Virgin Mary — a small stone chapel perched on Mount Koressos about 9 kilometers from Ephesus, where Christian tradition holds that Mary spent her final years after traveling here with St. John the Apostle. It's peaceful, spiritual, and deeply moving regardless of your religious background. Popes Paul VI, John Paul II, and Benedict XVI have all made pilgrimages here. The air smells like pine and cypress, there's a healing spring where pilgrims fill bottles, and people of all faiths leave prayer intentions on the wishing wall — scraps of paper and ribbon tied to wire, each one a hope or a heartache offered to heaven. I always spend a few quiet minutes there, breathing in the mountain air, feeling the presence of something ancient and holy.

The Ephesus Museum in nearby Selçuk is also worth the stop if you have time — it houses the original statues and artifacts from the site, including the multi-breasted Artemis of Ephesus, the goddess whose great temple here was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Though only a single column remains standing today at the temple site (the rest was destroyed and plundered over centuries), the museum's statue captures something of the awe that ancient pilgrims must have felt. She is both strange and beautiful — a fertility goddess draped in symbols of abundance, her temple once drawing worshippers from across the known world.

Back in Kusadasi town, the Grand Bazaar is one of my favorite shopping experiences in the Mediterranean. This isn't sanitized tourist shopping — it's narrow alleys crammed with leather jackets, Turkish ceramics, hand-knotted carpets, spices, lokum (Turkish delight), and shopkeepers who will invite you for apple tea before you've even looked at their wares. The haggling is expected and entertaining, and almost every transaction ends with a smile, a small gift, and a genuine "come back soon." I've bought gorgeous ceramics for a fraction of European prices, eaten fresh-squeezed pomegranate juice at the port entrance, and had kebab lunches overlooking the harbor that cost less than a Starbucks latte back home. The new-ish port village has good shopping and decent food if you prefer something more familiar.

Kusadasi is also famous for its carpet demonstrations, and while some people avoid these as aggressive sales pitches, I actually enjoy them — the stories behind the weaving traditions, the way they identify each knot style and dye source, the literal cup of tea and Turkish hospitality that come with the experience. You don't have to buy, but if you do, you're getting something handmade and centuries-old in design. Just know your budget going in.

Ephesus isn't just ruins. It's a living connection to the ancient world that leaves me speechless every single visit. It's walking in the footsteps of the Apostle Paul, of Roman emperors, of merchants and pilgrims and slaves. It's standing before a library that held the accumulated wisdom of civilizations and imagining the scholars who once climbed those steps. It's sitting in a theatre where 25,000 voices once roared and feeling the echo of their humanity across the centuries. If your Mediterranean cruise stops in Kusadasi, this is the port to prioritize above everything else. Get off the ship early. Take your time. Let the marble and the mosaics and the weight of two millennia settle into you. Let yourself feel small in the best possible way — small in time, but connected to something vast and enduring. You won't regret it.

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