Visiting the Town of Selcuk

As we wandered through Selçuk, we were at first surprised, because it didn’t feel “Turkish” enough. Somehow it seemed too western, with its wide, neatly cobblestones streets. It’s true, we hadn’t seen a lot of small Turkish towns to compare it to, but it somehow it seemed too “polished” for what we expected. The longer we stayed though, the more charming it became.

We were surprised by, and especially enjoyed the Saturday morning market, with its long rows of colorful fruits and vegetables, which we were able to spot from the rooftop of our guesthouse.

We weren’t able to resist — this is what we bought for lunch!

We ended up wandering our way through a couple of carpet and earthenware shops…

… Stopped to watch a sheep being butchered in the middle of the market, right outside a cafe…

… And wound our way up to the ruins of the St. John Basilica. We were so amazed at the size of the complex!

From there, we had a marvelous outlook of the surrounding hills, the mosque of Isa Bey, and the remaining pillar of the Temple of Artemis.

On the way back down through Selçuk, we stopped for a doner.

And then we stopped again for what we love best, a cup of tea over a board game, in this case, Rummikub.  We visited this cafe every day during our time in Selçuk.  It was great!

We ended up making a stop too, the next day, at the Ephesus museum, and were delighted with how well-preserved all the statues were. At first we weren’t sure about whether we wanted to visit the museum (we thought it might be a bit overwhelming, since we don’t know that much about Greek mythology), but we ended up pleasantly surprised and impressed.

All in all, we thoroughly enjoyed our time in Selçuk. Our guesthouse was welcoming, the community, although it was more modern than we were expecting, was quaint. Even though we found Selçuk rather touristy, once you got out of the ruins of Ephesus, and took some time to talk to the locals, we fell in love with it, and wanted to stay longer!