Selcuk

Hillside mansions of wealthy Romans, preserved under one big protective roof. You look down on wall paintings and mosaic floors from glass walkways. They need a ticket separate from the main site, but being covered they make a good midday escape from the sun.

Tiered seating set into a cut in the slope of Panayir hill. Acts records the silversmiths rising against the apostle Paul's preaching in this very place. From the top row the street to the old harbour shows, though silt has pushed the sea far back.

Statues from the ruins, gathered in a building at the town centre. Its stars are two Artemis figures hung across the chest with rows of egg-like ornaments. An hour covers it, and coming here first makes the stones at the site easier to read.

Once one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world, now a marshy meadow with a lone column pieced back from fragments. In spring and summer storks nest on top, drawing cameras. It lies beside the way out to the ruins, an easy stop on foot.

Ruins of the church Justinian raised in the 6th century over the apostle John's tomb, on the flank of Ayasuluk hill. The grave is marked among marble columns. From up here the Isa Bey Mosque and the Artemis temple site line up below.

Built in 1375 under the Aydinid beylik, with granite columns taken from older ruins standing in the courtyard arcade. It is still a working mosque, so visitors are held back for a while at prayer times. Women do well to carry a scarf to cover their hair.

Arches of a Byzantine aqueduct survive in broken stretches along the main street. Storks come back around March, nest on top of each arch and leave once summer ends. From a roadside tea house below the nests you watch the chicks being fed right overhead.

Cave and graves linked to the story of seven youths who hid from persecution, slept close on two centuries and woke. It lies on the east foot of Panayir hill; a locked gate now keeps visitors out of the tombs, so ask whether entry is allowed again.

Some ten minutes west of Selcuk by car, a broad sand beach spreads where the Little Menderes meets the sea. Bar a few big hotels there is almost nothing built, so the shore feels wide and empty. By afternoon the sea breeze picks up and parasols take flight.

Every Saturday awnings run down central streets and people from nearby villages bring vegetables, olives and cheese. Mornings have the full range; by afternoon leftover fruit goes cheap. This is where locals shop, not where ruins souvenirs are sold.

Byzantine and Seljuk walls ring the hilltop behind the Basilica of St John. The ramparts look down on Selcuk's rooftops and the stork-topped aqueduct. A sloping path ties it to the basilica; see both on one visit.

A Hellenistic town laid out on a strict grid across the slopes of Mount Mycale. Athena's temple has five of its columns back upright, and the stone benches of the council house survive almost whole. Pines shade it; Ephesus-sized crowds never come.

Miletus was a great port until river silt choked its harbour, and the sea now lies kilometres off. Its giant theatre survives like a hill, a Byzantine fort perched on its crown. Passages beneath the seating lead you through to the back of the stage.

An oracle of Apollo in Didim town, a colossal temple never finished. Some columns were never raised and stop at their bases. A Medusa head carving lying by the entrance is the most photographed stone on site.

A port town 15km west of Selcuk where cruise passengers set off for Ephesus. A stone causeway reaches Guvercinada, a small island ringed by old fortress walls. Its loop path looks back at the liners moored in the harbour.

A forested peninsula reaching south of Kusadasi, with the Greek island of Samos close across the strait. A string of pebble coves lines the park road. Admission is per car, and with barely a shop inside, carry water.

An open-air yard of dozens of steam locomotives at an old station 12km south of Selcuk. The line here was Anatolia's first railway, begun by a British company in 1856. Kids love that you can clamber into the cabs.