Priene, Miletos and Didyma – A Day Trip from Bodrum
I recently decided to visit these three sites from my home in Yalıkavak, and wanted to do them all in one day, without the hassle of an overnight stay, or a ridiculously early morning start. While I enjoy learning about the history of the area I’m not one to need to know every detail about ruins when I visit them. For this reason we did not go with a tour or get a guide and I don’t think it is particularly needed for these sites anyway; I was armed with an old Rough Guide to Turkey and the new edition of Lonely Planet and these provided me with all the information I needed for getting to the sites. The Rough Guide even contained descriptions and maps of each site and picked out the key areas of interest that should not be missed at each.
We went in early May so the weather was good but nowhere was too busy. There were tours around but at Priene and Miletos especially it is easy to explore away from the groups at this time of year. We left at 8.30am and returned home a little after 4pm.
It took just over 2 hours to drive to Priene from Yalıkavak – we headed up towards Soke and then took a left turn before reaching the outlet shopping area. This turning is signposted with a brown tourism sign, although there is not much warning given how fast the main road can sometimes get.
Priene
After driving through the beautiful village of Güllübahçe you will come to a cluster of markets and souvenir shops all advertising toilets. The site toilets are not always open and to be honest even if they are there will probably be a queue for them! Among all these markets, look out for the turning up the hill to Priene, which is sign posted with the standard brown tourism sign. At the top of this hill there is a small car park and the entrance to the site. Parking costs 2TL, entrance is 3TL per person and the parking attendant will probably approach you to collect his fee. The ticket office is opposite the entrance to the car park, and the site entrance/exit is to the left. In order to explore the ruins you must first walk up a bit of a hill with some rather loose stones and then steep steps, so make sure you are wearing appropriate footwear. The ruins are fairly compact but are surrounded by pine forest and spread across the slopes of the hill. It is a lovely location and the temple and theatre are probably the most interesting parts to see.
We spent about an hour wandering among the ruins and taking photographs without a guide - just using our guide books. There are some boards with information about key buildings in Turkish, German and English.
After leaving Priene car park you just turn right at the bottom of the hill and this road will lead you straight to Miletos, again the turning is marked with a brown sign and if you are visting May-October you will see minibuses and coaches taking the same 20-25 minute route.
Miletos
On the approach to Miletos it is hard not to see its main attraction – the 15,000 capacity theatre which still has many covered walkways intact. The ruins are spread over a much larger area than those at Priene so it does not get very crowded – most people seem to view the theatre and the baths and skip over the rest. Part of the site is submerged under water over winter and spring and makes for some interesting photographs.
As far as I understand there is a charge for parking and also for entrance to the site but there were no attendants around to pay when we visited, which can often be the case off-season. I imagine the prices would be similar to those at Priene. There are toilets at this site which cost 1TL to use, but they are clean and have toilet paper. There are a few stalls and cafes opposite the site for refreshments and souvenirs.
We spent another hour here wandering and taking photos. The paths and tracks between the ruins are well worn and apart from walking up the steps to the top of theatre to admire the view, everything is on relatively flat ground. There are occasional signs describing the ruins in English and Turkish.
Leaving Miletos you go back along the approach road to the site then turn right back onto the main road which again leads you (after approximately 20 minutes) pretty much straight to Didyma, passing a lovely strip of sandy beach on your right. We had taken a picnic lunch with us and decided to eat it on this beach.
Didyma
This is really only the Temple of Apollo which is useful to know since once you get close to the site the brown signs pointing to Didyma disappear and instead are replaced with ‘Temple of Apollon’ and then disappear altogether at the top of a hill. There is an open gravel area at the top of this hill where you will no doubt see coaches parked – this is the car park for the site. A man in a uniform will come over to you to collect the car park fee of 3TL and give you a ticket to say you have paid. From the car park you need to walk along the street which is closed to traffic by bollards, although of course you will still find traffic on this road so be careful! You can see the tops of the temple columns from the car park. After about 500m you will come to the entrance to the site where you buy your ticket for 3TL per person.
As you enter, there are two sets of wooden steps which lead you to the base of the temple. This is a very compact site but the 3 remaining full height Ionic columns make it very impressive too, and we spent about 45 minutes wandering around. This temple is so much more impressive than what remains of the Temple of Artemis near Ephesus (which is one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World).
Returning home again we had two choices, the first was to double back a little to re-join the main highway and go the same way we had come, the second was to take the back road that passes through Iasos and re-joins the highway at Milas. We chose the second route and it was much more scenic taking us through small villages and pine forests, but it did take us 2 hours to get back to Yalıkavak.