IT WOULD BE FAIR TO CALL IT THE REGION’S FIRST HOTEL
As you step out of Selçuk Train Station, you will see Cafe Carpouza right in front of you, set in the middle of its splendid garden. Originally a hotel, the building is one of Selçuk’s first tourist establishments. The owners of the “Grand Hotel Huck”, once the most famous hotel on İzmir’s Kordon waterfront, decided to open a branch in Selçuk. With travel made easier by the opening of the İzmir–Aydın railway, the number of visitors to ancient Ephesus had begun to grow. Opened as more and more travelers arrived from Europe, this branch was named Grand Huck-Ephese. That branch is the place now called Cafe Carpouza. The hotel was also known as the Ayasuluk Hotel.
The building originally had two floors, but its upper floor burned down during the Greco-Turkish War in 1922, so only the ground floor has survived. Run as a café by the municipality, Cafe Carpouza is a place where local families come to unwind and spend plenty of time in spring and summer.
