Sojourning to the ancient ruins of Ephesus may make you fall in love with a culture that stretches back 1,100 years before Christ.

Within this ancient city, you’ll marvel at the beauty of “fountains, statues, monuments, temples, a great library, residences, the agora, and the theater.” You’ll admire a population that grew to 250,000 — “the third or fourth largest city in the Roman Empire.” You’ll dream about what it sounded like, looked like, and smelled like when 25,000 people filled the Ephesian amphitheater, “the largest in the ancient world, . . . used initially for drama and later for gladiatorial combats.” You’ll gaze at the remains of “the Library of Celsus, [which] measured roughly [2,000 square feet] and . . . contained as many as 12,000 scrolls.” Ephesus “proudly boasted that it was the first and greatest metropolis of Asia.”