Kusadasi & The Ephesia Hotel

We stayed just one night in Selcuk because Robert has a friend who has a friend who has a former college roommate who is Turkish and owns a hotel in Kusadasi. Apparently there was a flurry of emailing before we left for Turkey and a possible invitation to visit Reza at his hotel, The Ephesia. A couple of days ago Robert emailed again to let Reza know that we would be in the vicinity on Tuesday, and he was told that the hotel was opening for the season on that very day.

So we packed our bags and left Selcuk to see what nearby Kusadasi was like. We found the downtown waterfront without any trouble, but Kusadasi is a big enough city that there are hundreds of hotels and the Ephesia was nowhere in sight. We stopped at the biggest hotel on the waterfront and Robert went in to ask. He was directed to a waterfront property a few kilometers away, south of the downtown area.



We found the Ephesia Hotel and the Ephisia Beach Club in an area with other hotels and residential summer houses, and walked up to the front desk to ask for Reza. Ten minutes later we were having a great conversation with a 30-something charming fellow who had studied finance at Arizona State University. His father had built this 250-room hotel a number of years ago and Reza was being groomed to take over the family business.

All kinds of attentive and busy employees were cleaning, preparing and generally putting things in order for the opening and Reza invited us to be his guests. This particular hotel uses the 'all inclusive' business model, which means that they promote the property as a 'destination' hotel and provide three daily meals, some snacks, many activities and certain amenities included in the room price. There are a couple of pools, a sandy beach and great views from all of the rooms. Most of their guests stay at least one week, and many stay two to six weeks at a time. At about 100 Euros per night, it's a great deal. We are enjoying our stay immensely. The staff is very friendly and they go out of their way to make sure the guests have everything they need both at the hotel and for day trips.

Robert and I thought long and hard about how to thank our host for his generosity, and we decided to offer to photograph his properties for promotion and marketing. Reza accepted our offer and we spent an hour getting a personal tour of both the hotel and the nearby beach club resort, then Reza cut us loose and we spent another couple of hours taking a couple hundred photos. I think we got some good ones and I hope Reza can use them. Check out the Ephesia's website at www.ephesiahotel.com.