Wife and and I and another 4 pairs of friends were on a Mediterranean trip on SeaDream Yacht. We booked this private Ephesus tours from Kusadasi so that we would have a tour organized and paced according to our preference. Our full-day excursion began at Kusadasi Port where our guide Mr. Selcuk and our driver Hasan greeted us. During our 20-minute ride to Ephesus in a Luxury Mercedes van, we were served cooled drinks and some appetizers while Mr. Selcuk chatted with us in both English and Chinese and told us some histories and anecdotes about the places we were to visit.
 
To avoid the crowd, we first visited the House of Virgin Mary. On the top of the hill overlooking the whole town of Selcuk, we could see why it was chosen as the last home of Virgin Mary. We each filled our water bottles with the mountain water from 3 taps which represent wealth, health and fertility respectively. Dr. Lin, a Catholic, wrote down her wishes on a piece of paper and tied it on the “wishing wall” outside the shrine.
 
Our next stop was the famous Ephesus ruins. Entering from Magnesia Gate, Selcuk guided us through the whole Ephesus with excellent illustration. We were absolutely impressed by the city planning, the magnificence of the architecture, the prosperity and the high cultural level of the Old Greek and the Romans. We, 10 adults and Mr. Selcuk, acted like teenagers at the site of Latrine where each of us sat on a “toilet” and chatted just like the Greeks and the Romans had done a couple of thousand years ago. That was really fun!
 
After our Ephesus tour, we had a great lunch at Aziziye restaurant. There were so many desserts to choose from! Then a short ride after, we were in Sirince where we tried all kinds of local fruit wines. On our way to Sirince, we passed by many carpet and leather factory outlets. Mr. and Mrs. Song were interested in leather so we asked Selcuk to take us to this huge building with beautiful garden after our visit in Sirince. We found out this huge building with beautiful garden was called Kircilar. To our surprise, there was this Taiwanese lady, Stella, greeting us and showing us to the fashion show room. The fashion show was awesome with many new designs for 2013-2014. We then were shown into the leather salon where Stella gave us a short lecture about leather. Mrs. Song’s shopping spree ensued! Her enthusiasm in shopping was contagious and pretty soon all of us were trying on mink furs, leather jackets or coats. We ended up spending 2 hours there and every one left Kircilar with lots of shopping bags in there hands. I have got to admit that the salespersons at Kircilar were great, their language skill was impressive and mostly the atmosphere of the place was entertaining.
 

 
This private Ephesus tour is the best private tour we have had. It was well-organized and yet extremely flexible. Our guide Mr. Selcuk made us feel at home in a foreign country.
 
Thanks!
Charles Chuang