After meeting your professional guide at the pier, your private Ephesus excursion will depart for the House of the Virgin Mary. It is known with certainty that the Virgin Mary went to Ephesus and lived there for some time. Whether she died in Ephesus is not confirmed, and her final resting place is still contested. In the late 1800's, a stigmatized German nun who had never been to Ephesus, Anne Catherine Emmerich, had a vision of the House of the Virgin Mary and described it in detail to the German writer Clemens Brentano who later published a book about it. In 1891 Paul, Superior of the Lazarists from Izmir, read about her vision and found a little building which corresponded with Emmerich's descriptions. Although the foundations were from the 1st-Century A.D., the house itself dates only back to the 5th-century A.D. The site was officially declared a shrine of the Roman Catholic Church in 1896, and since then it has become a popular place of pilgrimage. Popes have visited the shrine in 1967 and again in 2006.

Your next stop is the ancient site of Ephesus, the greatest port city in Asia Minor during the years of the Roman Empire. Upon arrival at this great city, you will walk with your guide as they bring to life the many famous sites of Ephesus including the Forum, the Odeon, the Library of Celsus, and the Thermal Baths of Scolastika. You will also view the remains of the main Agora and the Great Theater, which was built in the Greek era and reconstructed in the Roman period. At the end of your private Ephesus cruise excursion, you will return to the port town of Kusadasi where you will have the opportunity to watch a Turkish rug demonstration or return to the pier.