Guided group tours in İzmir: Selçuk, Bergama and the city as separate days

İzmir splits into three working areas. Selçuk, in the south, has Ephesus, the Ephesus Museum and Ayasuluk Hill within 4 km of each other by road. Bergama, in the north, has the Pergamon acropolis, the Asklepion and the Bergama Museum. The city, with the Agora of Smyrna, and Seferihisar, with Teos, lie in between.

Ephesus and the Pergamon acropolis are 186 km apart by road, with the city on the way (OSRM estimates, table below). Each area is a day of its own.

Heat limits the season more than rain. At the İzmir station of the State Meteorological Service (MGM) the average daily maximum is 33.3 °C in July and 33.0 °C in August, against 21.0 °C in April and 24.1 °C in October; November to March bring 8.75 to 12.72 rainy days a month (MGM, 1938-2025). The sites are open stone with little shade, so in summer they belong to the morning and a museum to midday.

Ephesus was the most visited of the Ministry's museums and sites in 2025, with 2,552,734 visitors (Ministry figures reported by Anadolu Agency, 29 September 2026). Two calendars add to that:

• Cruise calls. Kuşadası's cruise port calls itself the gateway to Ephesus, puts the site about 25 minutes away and publishes its ship calls (Ege Port Kuşadası). Check your date against them.
• Public holidays. Over the nine-day Ramadan holiday of 2025, Ephesus counted 81,264 visitors, about 9,000 a day against a 2025 average of about 7,000 (Anadolu Agency, 8 April 2025).

The Ministry's opening hours on 6 October 2026, every site listed open daily:

The Ministry or the governorship sets these hours and publishes changes on muze.gov.tr (directive, article 7); check again in the week of the tour.

Road figures are OSRM car estimates between the coordinates of our destination records, computed on 6 October 2026 without traffic or stops; agree coach times with your driver.

The Ephesus Museum is about 290 m on foot from the Ayasuluk ticket booth (OpenStreetMap). In Bergama the map flatters: the acropolis and the Asklepion are 2.2 km apart in a straight line and 6.9 km by road. OSRM's fastest route from Teos to Ephesus runs round by the İzmir motorways, so Teos pairs with the city.

Visit times are those on our destination pages; hours are the Ministry's on 6 October 2026.

Selçuk. Enter Ephesus at 08:00 and add the Terrace Houses when they open at 09:00: about three hours plus 45 minutes. Drive 7 minutes into Selçuk for lunch and the Ephesus Museum (75 minutes), then walk to Ayasuluk (90 minutes), reaching the castle before 16:00 if it is in the plan. That is about six and a half hours on the ground.

Bergama. The acropolis is 1 h 31 min from the city by road. Allow two and a half hours there, cable car included, 40 minutes in the Bergama Museum over lunch and an hour and a half in the Asklepion, which comes second because level ground suits the end of the day. Both sites sell their last tickets at 17:00. The Ministry's page listed the Red Basilica (Kızılavlu) as closed; leave it out until that changes.

City and coast. The Agora of Smyrna takes about an hour and Teos an hour and a half, with an hour's drive between them: the lightest of the three days.

Foreign visitors' prices in the Ministry's February 2026 directive:

Museum Pass Ege (€95) covers more than 40 museums and sites in İzmir, Aydın, Muğla and Denizli for seven days from the first entry, but not night openings (product page, 6 October 2026). On the Terrace Houses the official sources disagree: the pass's coverage map includes them, while the directive prices them separately. Confirm at the gate.

For Turkish citizens the directive reads “enter with MüzeKart” at every site above except the Terrace Houses, where MüzeKart holders pay a reduced 200 TL. Our MüzeKart page and Museum Pass page cover mixed groups.

Group rules in the same directive:

• Ephesus. A group of thirty strings out along Curetes Street, and the Great Theatre is the one stop whose architecture carries a voice. Tell the long stories before the Library of Celsus and in the theatre.
• Terrace Houses. Narrow walkways force single file. Split a large group at the entrance and name where the halves meet.
• Museums. The Ephesus and Bergama museums are compact halls that reflect every voice, so the other group in the room sets the noise level.
• Pergamon acropolis. The cable car delivers the group in cabin-sized batches, and the terraces put half of it above you and half below. Name the regrouping point at the bottom station and narrate the theatre from the upper terrace.
• Asklepion. The incubation tunnel turns thirty people into a single file. Speak before they go in.
• Agora of Smyrna. Streets of the bazaar quarter surround it. Talk inside the site, away from the fence.

Our headset rules page lists one rule in Türkiye, the National Palaces' headset requirement for guided groups of more than eight; none of the places here is a National Palace. With Your Next Tours the guide's phone broadcasts over a portable WiFi router and the group listens on its own phones and earphones, with no internet needed during the tour (how it works).