EPHESUS TOURS

James G. Stevenson () We arranged for a private tour of Ephesus, the House of Mary, the Basilica of St. John and the Terrace Houses in early September of 2009. This tour was planned from Istanbul where we were visiting for a conference. Our experience with OTTI Travel and Tour Company was excellent. They customized the tour to meet the interests of our group of 10. We were picked up from our hotel in Istanbul early in the morning and taken to the airport. This was an extremely nice feature and alleviated the tension of finding your group once you got there and finding the correct place to go at the airport. We did not know anything about Olympus Airlines, the carrier taking us to Izmir. We were pleasantly surprised to be on board new planes with very pleasant staff. Our flights were well run. OTTI Travel arranged for the flights as part of the tour package. In Izmir we were greeted by our guide Banu. Our private vehicle was a roomy, new, air conditioned bus. Our driver was a very good, safe driver. We can’t say enough about Banu. She is highly knowledgeable and her English is great. She is fun and was intuitive to our needs. The sites we saw were moving (The House of Mary) and incredible (Ephesus and the Terrace Houses) and our visit with lunch to a small carpet company was very enjoyable and informative. At the end of the day we were returned to our hotel doorstep from the airport by private car. We couldn’t be more satisfied with OTTI Travel and their service. Great Job! We highly recommend OTTI and especially our guide Banu.