DAILY TOURS: Priene-Miletus-Didyma

From Kusadasi drive through countryside dotted with vineyards, olive orchards and cotton plantations, and first visit the site of the ancient harbor city of Priene. The Favorite Home of Alexander the Great, Priene has one of the best settings of any of the cities of the ancient world. It was founded in 350 BC. Being ruled by the Ionians, Lydians and the Persians, the city eventually came under the domain of Alexander the Great. The city is said was so beautiful that it became Alexander's favorite place to stay in Asia Minor. After 200 years of Pergamon Kingdom rule, it became first a Roman city and then a Byzantine city. Finally an earthquake and malaria became the two major reasons for the end of the city's inhabitation.
While there see the 4th century BC Athena Temple, Parliamentary Building, Fish Market, the Theater and the city walls, the best preserved to be seen today.

Continue to Miletus, which had nearly 90 colonies and was one of the greatest and richest of all the Greek cities. It was the main trade center in Anatolia for a long time, and was also rich in culture; science, philosophy and architecture. Miletus was the home to many 8of the world's greatest philosophers including Thales, Aneximender, Aneximenes, Hekataios and thus, in its heyday, a center of scientific discovery and the birthplace of Western philosophy. It was here that the great city planner Hippodomus first tried to grid city plan. Its grid-like layout became the basic layout for Roman cities. Miletus is the birthplace of the Hagia Sophia's architect, and inventor of the flying buttress, Isidore of Miletus. Miletus was also known for athletics, very similar to the Olympic games.  Moreover, the symbol of the Olympic Games, the tripod with a fire, originates from the Lighthouse at the biggest harbor of Miletus. 
See the Theater where St. Paul met the elders of Ephesus, the Faustina Baths, the Harbor Monument, the Delphinium and the Ilyas Bey Mosque are the highlights of the site.

After lunch at one of the local restaurants drive further to the south to visit the site of Didyma. The word Didyma meant twins and was associated by some as being the meeting place of Zeus and Leto to have their twins Apollo and Artemis. Didyma was famed as a prophecy center dedicated to Apollo which served a similar purpose as the Delphi of Anatolia. It was not a city but a sanctuary linked to Miletus by Milesians with a 19 km sacred road. Along the way were ritual way stations, and statues of members of the Branchidae family, male and female, as well as animal figures. Some of these statues, dating to the 6th century BC are now in the British Museum. Even it is believed that there was a shrine there before the Ionians came in the 10C BC, a temple at the same site was built in the 6C BC, and later destroyed by the Persians in 494 BC. In the 4C BC Milesians started to rebuild the temple but could not complete it. Even in its unfinished state the Apollo Temple was regarded as one of the largest temples of the Hellenistic world, comparable to the Artemis Temple in Ephesus or the Heraion at Samos.
Here we will see the huge Medusa relief standing next to the temple, a 2C AD piece that has fallen off the frieze and the remains of an altar and a well.