From Izmir: Ephesus and House of Mary with LUNCH+ENTRY TICKETS

Our tour guide Pinar was excellent. She was knowledgeable and organized. She made the day very memorable.

A thoroughly enjoyable day out. Ephesus is so far beyond what I expected. The line ups were quite long for Mary’s house, but that is unavoidable. Our Turkish lunch was also a lovely treat - plentiful, varied and delicious. Firah (sp?) was an excellent and personable guide. Overall, a wonderful experience.

Well organized with our very knowledgeable and friendly tour guide (Ogun). We were provided with ample time at each stop to appreciate the sights. The lunch was plentiful and tasty.

We were really looking forward to our private day tour of Ephesus from our cruise stop in Izmir, especially with multiple ships in port and the crowds we anticipated. Unfortunately, the experience fell short of expectations. While the historical sites themselves were impressive, especially Ephesus, both that and the Virgin Mary House were extremely crowded, which is understandable in peak season. However, what made the day disappointing was our tour guide’s lack of engagement. While he seemed knowledgeable, he shared very little voluntarily and offered mostly surface-level facts that echoed what we could read on the plaques. It felt like he was going through the motions rather than bringing the sites to life, which is what we had hoped for in a private tour. The most frustrating part of the day was our lunch stop, which was unexpectedly held at a Turkish carpet cooperative. We had been expecting a nice local restaurant, but instead we were taken to a large facility where multiple tour groups were being funneled through. After lunch, we told our guide we didn’t need or want the carpet factory tour, as we were aware it would end in a high-pressure sales pitch. Despite this, he insisted we would offend the staff if we didn’t go through with it. After that, due to traffic and the time lost, we had to skip the Temple of Artemis, which was disappointing. We understand that crowds and timing are factors outside the tour company’s control, but we booked a private experience specifically to avoid these kinds of pitfalls—and unfortunately, it felt more like a standard group tour with little customization or care. A bright spot was our transportation: the Mercedes Sprinter van was very spacious and comfortable, and our driver was excellent. This tour had potential, but ultimately it missed the mark for us.

We thoroughly enjoyed our trip to Mary's house, Ephesus, and the delicious lunch at a local restaurant. The trip was well organized, informative and fun. Feliz gave an interesting and informative commentary on all of the sites and answered questions about the sites, history and culture in Türkiye. i would recommend this tour without question.

Filiz (our tour guide) spoke excellent English for our tour. We were taken to many sites including one of the seven wonders of the world and also to an amazing traditional Turkish restaurant.

We were very happy with this tour. This private tour is the most cost effective tour in our trip. All the admission fee and meal are included. And we enjoy a big Mercedes Benz bus for our private 7hr tours. Our personal tour guilder and private car driver come to the port ahead of our booking time since they checked the cruise ship arrival time. It is very easy to meet them at the port exit. We visited Virgin Mary’s house, the ancient city of Ephosus and Temple of Artemis. Since we were the first two groups in those places, we were able to view the Ephosus without crowds. Our personal guilder Lisrk companies us on the tour and gave us very detailed stories about all the places we are visiting. She also made extra effort to accommodate our request to visit Aegean coast.

Ugur was very professional, friendly and knowledgeable! So happy to have booked with him instead of the cruise ship. Highly recommended!! Our driver Sezai took us safely to our destinations. A++ for both of them!!

This was my second trip to Turkey and my first outside Istanbul so I was not quite sure what to expect, particularly for a tour covering a fairly long distance on Christmas Day in not very promising weather conditions. As it turned out, we had an extremely articulate, intelligent and charming guide called Ogün, who was able to adapt quickly to exactly what we wanted to do and needed to know, who was informative without trying to lecture, enlightening without being glib, and genuinely interested and enthusiastic about his job without being formulaic or routine. He was also possessed of a good sense of humour which made him very easy to relate to. The tour itself was well organised, prepared and managed even down to the food Ogün chose for us to eat. By the end of the day, we were sorry to say goodbye because our guide had become our friend for some 10 hours and turned the day into one of the most memorable of the year.

I appreciate the tour because of the Service and the history of ottoman man and Virgin mother Mary for 2 days and I appreciate about Mr. Ogun of his service and his places