Izmir day out · Cukurici Mound

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Izmir

   Izmir is where Turkey faces west. It sprawls around a deep bay on the Aegean, with hills behind it and a seafront promenade, the Kordon, along which people stroll, eat and argue until late. The city is ancient Smyrna, claimed by Homer's admirers as his birthplace, and it carries a layered, cosmopolitan past of Greek, Ottoman, Levantine and Jewish communities that still shows in the old bazaar quarter of Kemeraltı.

   Read the complete Izmir write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Izmir is where the day begins. Next is Ayasuluk Hill.

2. 2. Ayasuluk Hill

   The hill of Ayasuluk is where old Ephesus went to live when the harbour silted up. As the sea retreated from the ancient city and the Cayster river filled the bay with mud, the people drifted north-east to this ridge, which already held a shrine to St John, and a new town grew around it. Tradition says that John the Evangelist spent his last years in Ephesus and was buried here, and in the sixth century the emperor Justinian built a huge domed basilica over the supposed tomb, with a marble floor and a nave of great length. The ruins stand on the slope today, with fragments of columns and arches, and you can walk among them in the shade of cypresses.

   Read the complete Ayasuluk Hill write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Ayasuluk Hill comes up about 78 km into the recorded legs. Next is Ancient city of Ephesus.

3. 3. Ancient city of Ephesus

   Ephesus is the sort of place where the scale arrives slowly, one marble block at a time. It lies in the plain beside Selçuk, less than three kilometres from the town centre and about twelve from the resort of Kuşadası, and once stood on the sea. The Cayster river kept dropping silt until the harbour became fields, and the city that had been one of the great ports of the Roman province of Asia was left stranded a few kilometres inland.

   Read the complete Ancient city of Ephesus write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   At least about 81 km into the recorded legs you reach Ancient city of Ephesus. Next is Ephesus.

4. 4. Ephesus

   Ephesus once had a population of a quarter of a million, a harbour that brought in ships from across the Mediterranean, and a temple counted among the Seven Wonders of the ancient world. Today it has the best-preserved street plan of any Roman city in the east, and a crowd of visitors who walk down its marble roads each morning. The most photographed building is the Library of Celsus, whose two-storey facade, with its columns and statues of the virtues, was built in the early second century as a tomb and a library for a Roman governor, and rebuilt from the fallen stones in the twentieth century. The Great Theatre, carved into the slope of Mount Pion, held about twenty-five thousand people and is where, according to the Acts of the Apostles, the silversmiths of Ephesus rioted against Paul for threatening the trade in souvenir shrines of Artemis.

   Read the complete Ephesus write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Ephesus, about halfway. Next is Cukurici Mound.

5. 5. Cukurici Mound

   Most visitors to Ephesus head for the marble street and the big theatre, but a few kilometres away, on the edge of the plain, a low earth mound hides an earlier story. Çukuriçi Höyük is the remains of a village that people began to settle about 8,500 years ago, in the Neolithic, long before Greek colonists came to the river mouth and long before anyone built a temple to Artemis. Archaeologists have found houses of mudbrick, obsidian tools traded from far-off islands, and signs of early farming. It is the kind of place where you have to read the information boards and use your imagination, because there are no towers or columns. What you see is a gentle hump in the ground, olive trees, and a view toward the hills.

   Read the complete Cukurici Mound write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Cukurici Mound sits at 82 km, about halfway. Next is back through Ephesus.

6. 6. back through Ephesus

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Ephesus write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   back through Ephesus comes up about 89 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Ancient city of Ephesus.

7. 7. back through Ancient city of Ephesus

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Ancient city of Ephesus write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 95 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Ancient city of Ephesus. Next is back through Ayasuluk Hill.

8. 8. back through Ayasuluk Hill

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Ayasuluk Hill write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   back through Ayasuluk Hill, late in the day. Next is Izmir.

9. 9. Izmir

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Izmir write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   The route ends here after 171 km.