It takes some imagination to picture it now, but this marshy field on the edge of Selcuk once held one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. The Temple of Artemis, or Artemision, was a colossal marble sanctuary to the city's patron goddess, far larger than the Parthenon and ringed by more than a hundred towering columns. It was rebuilt several times across antiquity, famously burned down by an arsonist in 356 BC (on the night, legend says, that Alexander the Great was born), raised again grander still, and finally ruined for good in late antiquity, its stone quarried away for other buildings. Today a single column, reassembled from scattered fragments, stands amid the foundations and reeds, often topped by a nesting stork. The site is free, quick to see, and honestly rather melancholy, but standing where a Wonder of the World once rose is worth the short stop, especially with the Basilica of Saint John and a castle rising on the hill just behind.
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