The archaeological site of Priene in Western Turkey is the opportunity to visit a middle size Hellenistic city from the last centuries BCE. There are no outstanding monuments like in other nearby inscribed sites, but all typical buildings of a city of that time can be visited : bouleuterion (the “city council room”), agora (main square), theatre (well preserved with many architectural details), temple of Athena (a few still standing columns, and many more on the ground floor…). This feeling of walking in an everyday, human size environment makes the experience different than visiting e.g. Ephesus or Aphrodisias, enhanced by the nice location of the site on the slope of a rocky hill and the more than welcomed shadow of pine trees. 

Priene is also famous for being one of the best and oldest surviving examples of a city build according to Hyppodamus of Miletus rules: straight streets crossing at right angles, dividing the city according to a grid pattern of identical areas. Remarkably, builders strictly adhered to that plan, and when the slope was too important, they transformed the street into stairs: nowadays visitors access the site via such a “stairs street”. The city was moved and rebuilt to its current location because the former one had been totally destroyed by war. Re building the city ex nihilo was a good opportunity to implement these new principles of urbanism (note that Milet is only a few kilometres from Priene).

Another important innovation is the design of the capitals of Athena temple, which are said to be the first ones in ionic style, replacing the then standard doric style. Following a narrow trail behind the temple, we also enjoyed visiting the remains of houses, of which stone walls still clearly mark the layout of the courtyard and rooms around: quite unusual, and the consequence of these houses being built with stones, not perishable materials.

As you may have guessed already, we clearly recommend the short detour to Priene. It is also worth mentioning that there were almost no visitors (forget the crowds of Pamukkale) and ticket price is very low.