The four sights nobody should miss at Ephesus are the Library of Celsus, the Great Theatre, the marble descent of Curetes Street, and the Terrace Houses. Everything else on this page is worth your time; those four are the reason people come.
The four unmissable
- Library of Celsus — the two-storey façade that appears on every poster of Türkiye, built as a library and a tomb at once, with its founder still buried beneath the floor.
- Great Theatre — 25,000 seats cut into the hillside, still used for performances, and the setting of the riot in Acts 19.
- Curetes Street — the colonnaded marble slope that ties the city together, past fountains, temples and mosaic pavements.
- Terrace Houses — the separate-ticket complex of Roman homes with frescoes, mosaics and heating systems intact. The most skipped great sight in Türkiye.
Six more worth real time
- Temple of Hadrian — the prettiest small building on the site, with Tyche and Medusa guarding its arches.
- The public latrines — marble multi-seat toilets with running water and no partitions. Everybody photographs them, and they teach more about Roman life than most temples.
- Odeon — the roofed council chamber that doubled as a concert hall.
- Marble Street — for the chariot ruts and the carved footprint called the world’s oldest advertisement.
- Mazaeus & Mithridates Gate — the grandest doorway in the city, funded by two freed slaves.
- Arcadian Street — the harbour avenue that now ends in a field, which explains the city’s death better than any sign.
Just outside the gates
The House of the Virgin Mary in the pine hills, the Basilica of St John on Ayasuluk Hill, the single surviving column of the Temple of Artemis — one of the Seven Wonders, and free — and the Ephesus Museum in Selçuk, where the finds live, including both statues of Artemis Ephesia. The newer Ephesus Experience Museum beside the site offers a projected reconstruction of the city for those who like their history rendered.
Our stop-by-stop city tour route puts all of this in walking order, and the how-long guide fits it to the hours you actually have.
