AT A GLANCE
Why go?
The Natural Park of the Virgin Mary crowns Mount Koressos (Bülbüldağı, the Nightingale Mountain) about nine kilometres above Selçuk, a short drive up from the ancient city of Ephesus. Within a tranquil, pine-wooded nature reserve stands a small stone chapel venerated as the last home of Mary, mother of Jesus—a site of pilgrimage for Christians, and one held sacred by Muslims too.↗↗
It is a place that rewards a slow visit: a candlelit chapel, a blessed spring flowing from arched stone fountains, a wall hung with whispered wishes, and cool forest paths with wide views over the Aegean plain. Easy to reach from Ephesus or Selçuk, it makes a serene counterpoint to the grand ruins below.↗↗
A sacred home on Nightingale Mountain
Tradition holds that after the death of Jesus, Saint John brought Mary to the Ephesus region, where she passed her final years. For centuries the precise location was lost, until 1891, when Lazarist priests, following the descriptions recorded from the visions of the German mystic Anne Catherine Emmerich, identified a cruciform stone building on this mountainside as her house. The discovery electrified the Christian world, and the structure—simple, ancient, and later restored—was recognised as a place of devotion.
