I had visited Aydın once before, and returned in March 2007. The city was taken from the Byzantines by the Seljuks after the Battle of Malazgirt in 1071, where Alp Arslan defeated Romanus IV Diogenes. After several occupations the Turks took over in 1280, they named it Güzel Hisar (Beautiful Fortress). A prince from the house of Aydınoğlu reigned from 1310 on. Henceforth the name Aydın (Enlightened) was used for the city. In 1922 the city was utterly destroyed during the Turkish-Greek hostilities, but is has since been rebuilt.

It has several fine mosques, the one I like the most is the baroque Cihanoğlu, from 1756, with a great şadırvan (ablations fountain). However, I managed not to visit some other mosques, so I may return someday for a closer inspection. This time the sky was overcast, the city deserved better weather (and so did I). Luckily there was a market going on, which brightened things up a bit.

To visit, I stayed in Söke, a city that has nothing special, but which turned out to be an excellent spot to get on busses to (at least) Priene, Miletus, Didyma, Aydın and probably Ephesus. I found travel times greatly reduced compared to when I visited places from Selçuk (which itself is a fine town).