12:40 · Lunch is uphill from here

Ephesus & Şirince Tour

Marble in the morning, vine shade in the afternoon, and a driver handling the hill road in between. This is the day we’d build for our own visiting friends.

7 hours
From €45 per person
Village lunch stop
Wine tasting optional

Whitewashed Ottoman-Greek houses with tiled roofs stacked up the hillside at Şirince above Ephesus — Şirince, twelve minutes uphill from Ephesus: an Ottoman-Greek village of stone houses, courtyard kitchens and fruit-wine cellars.

Skip the line — you walk straight in

Gezginol Tourism holds a travel-agency priority pass, and we buy your entrance tickets before you arrive. No ticket window, no machine that refuses your card, no standing in the sun behind four coachloads. Your guide meets you with the tickets already in hand and takes you through the priority entrance — the fast-track lane kept for licensed agencies.

Skip the line at Ephesus with reserved tickets and a fast pass — quick pass, fast lane entrance and no queueing at the gate — Reserved tickets, quick pass and fast lane entrance — included on every tour we run. Ask us for your date →

In July and August the queue at the Ephesus upper gate regularly runs twenty to forty minutes before you have even set foot in the city. On a cruise day that is a fifth of your time ashore spent looking at the back of someone's head. Our guests never join it.

Skip-the-line entry at both Ephesus gates and at the Terrace Houses.
Fast-pass access at Meryem Ana Evi, the Basilica of St John and the Ephesus Archaeological Museum.
The same priority everywhere we guide. Hagia Sophia, Topkapı and the Basilica Cistern in Istanbul; the Göreme Open Air Museum and the underground cities in Cappadocia; Pamukkale and Hierapolis. Wherever a Gezginol guide takes you in Türkiye, you enter through the agency lane.
And we add nothing to the ticket. The fast pass is ours to give; the entrance fee stays exactly what the Ministry of Culture and Tourism charges at the gate, to the lira. You are paying us for the queue you skip — never for the ticket itself.
What it does not do, said honestly: it skips the ticket line, not the security check, and it cannot create space at a site the Ministry has closed or capped for the day. Those are nobody's to promise.

Şirince sits twelve minutes above Ephesus and belongs to a different century: a Greek-Ottoman hill village of whitewashed stone houses, courtyard restaurants, and cellars of homemade fruit wine — quince, mulberry, blackberry, pomegranate. Most Ephesus itineraries skip it entirely or allot it a cruel twenty minutes. We give it the whole afternoon, which is what it deserves.

The shape of the day

Morning in Ephesus while it is quiet — the full guided city, about four hours including the moments you’ll want to just stand still. Then your driver takes you up the hill for the long lunch: a courtyard table, whatever is fresh that day, and a guide who knows exactly which kitchen in this village is worth your afternoon. Afterwards, a wander through the lanes to the old church of St John the Baptist and a tasting at a small cellar if wine interests you. Downhill again by late afternoon, tired in the good way.

Lunch is included in the price of this day. A courtyard table in the village, whatever the kitchen did well that morning, at a place we would eat at ourselves — you sit down and it is already paid for. Wine tasting and personal drinks are the only things you settle yourself, because those should be your choice and nobody else’s.

Ephesus & Şirince Tour in photographs

What the day actually looks like, in order. 5 photographs — swipe sideways, tap any one to enlarge it.

White Ottoman-Greek houses with tiled roofs stacked up the hillside at Şirince — **1/5** Şirince — Ottoman-Greek houses stacked up a hillside of peach and fig orchards, eight kilometres above Selçuk.

A dondurma seller in traditional embroidered costume at his brass cart on a Şirince lane — **2/5** The dondurma man on the main lane. The showmanship is part of the price.

Curetes Street in Ephesus, walked in the morning before the Şirince afternoon — **3/5** Ephesus first, in the cool of the morning. Şirince keeps until the afternoon.

The Temple of Hadrian arch on Curetes Street at Ephesus — **4/5** The Temple of Hadrian — the halfway mark of the Ephesus walk.

A long platter of Turkish mezes, cheeses and cold dishes laid out for lunch — **5/5** Lunch is in the price on this tour. It arrives like this, without your having ordered any of it.

What’s included, plainly

Included: Private licensed local guide
Included: Priority entrance — we hold your tickets and walk you past the queue
Included: Private air-conditioned vehicle with professional driver
Included: Hotel or cruise port pickup and drop-off
Included: Parking fees and fuel
Included: All taxes and required insurance
Included: Lunch at a local restaurant — included on every tour that visits Ephesus

Not included: The entrance fee itself — we obtain the tickets for you, at the official Ministry price with nothing added
Not included: Personal drinks and anything ordered beyond the set lunch
Not included: Gratuities (optional, always appreciated)

Where we meet, and where the day happens

Your meeting point: Your Kuşadası or Selçuk hotel, or the cruise port

Approximate positions of the places in an Ephesus day, drawn from their real coordinates — schematic, not a navigation map. Kuşadası port sits south-west of Ephesus; Selçuk is the town at the gate; Meryem Ana Evi is up the hill behind the ancient city.

Open any of these in your own map application:

Ephesus on Google Maps — the ancient city — both gates
Selçuk on Google Maps — the town at the gate
Şirince on Google Maps — the hill village
Meryem Ana Evi on Google Maps — the House of the Virgin Mary
Kuşadası port on Google Maps — where the ships tie up

Shall we hold a date?

Ephesus & Şirince Tour runs from €45 per person, about 7 hours door to door. Tell us the day and who is coming, and a licensed guide — not an auto-reply — writes back with a real plan and the exact price for your group size.

Plan my day with a guide

Nothing is paid in advance, so a change of plan costs nothing
Skip-the-line entrance included — tickets at the official price, no markup
TÜRSAB licensed agency No. 15746, based twenty minutes from the gate

Questions we actually get

Is Şirince worth visiting?

If you like villages more than monuments, it may quietly beat Ephesus as your memory of the day. Come read our full local's guide to Şirince before you decide.

Is lunch included?

Yes. Lunch is included in the price on every tour that visits Ephesus, and this is one of them — a proper sit-down village table, not a sandwich in the car. Only personal drinks are extra.

Is the wine actually good?

It's fruit wine made in villages, not Burgundy — and drunk cold under a vine after a morning in the ruins it is exactly, precisely right.

The full day

from €45per person · guide, car, driver & parking included, lunch too

Length: About 7 hours door to door
Starts: Morning pickup — Ephesus first, Şirince after lunch
Meet: Your Kuşadası or Selçuk hotel, or the cruise port
Group: Private — your party only
Language: English (tell us if you need another — the agency guides in several)
Guide: Licensed (TÜRSAB member agency No. 15746)
Tickets: Bought ahead with our priority pass, at the official Ministry price
Cancellation: Free — nothing is paid in advance, so changing or cancelling costs you nothing

Ask about my date

No prepayment, no card, no booking engine. We answer from info@ephesusbylocals.com, usually the same day.

Your tickets, bought before you arrive.

Guests from these lines walk Ephesus with us — and we bring them back on time, every time.

The ships we meet

We bring people back on time.

Guests from these cruise lines have walked Ephesus with us for over twenty years. Not one of them has missed a ship — we plan every shore day backwards from your all-aboard time.

Logos of the cruise lines whose guests we guide at Ephesus, including Royal Caribbean, MSC, Celebrity, Princess, Viking, Cunard, Holland America and Costa

21:00 · ONE MESSAGE, ONE PLAN

Tell us your date.
We’ll tell you the plan.

A licensed local guide replies personally — usually the same day, from info@ephesusbylocals.com.