Sirince Village

Sirince stands on the slopes above Selcuk, eight kilometres from Ephesus. Until 1923 it was inhabited by Greeks, and the old name Kirkinca was replaced by the present one, which means 'pleasant', only after the exchange of populations between Greece and Turkey, when Muslims from Thessaloniki were resettled here. From the Greek period the layout and the houses remain: whitewashed walls, wooden bay windows, tiled roofs and narrow paved streets climbing in steps up the steep slope. In the centre stand two churches, St John the Theologian of the late nineteenth century and the church of St Demetrius, converted into a mosque and later restored as a monument. The village lives by winemaking: locals make fruit wines from pomegranate, peach, mulberry and blueberry, and shops full of bottles take up almost the whole centre. Olive and fig orchards are laid out in terraces around the houses. Because of the proximity to Ephesus the flow of visitors is heavy, but the streets higher up stay quiet, and from the upper terraces the whole valley and the neighbouring hills are visible. The road here winds up through olive groves, and the climb from Selcuk takes about twenty minutes. In autumn figs are gathered on the terraces and dried right on the roofs.

On the map