It is one of the most striking castles I have seen in western Turkey: Keçi Kalesi, “Goat Castle.
It towers above the E87 motorway that connects Izmir and Aydin, 450 meters above the plain.
It is one of the best hikes in the area, and it can be completed in a few hours or over the course of one glorious day.
Hiking to Goat Castle
A hike begins at the Belevi Izban Station, the penultimate stop on the line between Izmir and Selçuk. From the station, follow the road to the southwest for about 200 meters. Follow the marker that directs you to the right.
The trail had been newly marked when I climbed in January 2024. I may have missed a switchback or two on the way up, but I never got lost and found the trail easily when I did. At a steady pace, the castle can be reached in an hour.
A History of Goat Castle
Considering its prominent location, the history of the castle is murky. While the first castle on the site was probably erected during the Hellenistic Era (around 300 BCE), the current structure dates to Byzantine times, around 700 CE.
The castle’s location is strategic. It guards the back door of the ancient city of Ephesus — the Aegean’s most important port from Hellenistic times until the rise of Constantinople in the 4th Century CE. Most of the trade came by sea, but the road to Sardis ran through the broad Little Meander River valley below Goat Castle, and from there on to the major cities of the East: Antioch, Babylon and Susa.
A quick look at the history of the area shows that the castle overlooked a number of significant military attacks. While many of the significant wars of its era were fought well away from Ephesus — such as the battles between the Seleucids and the Ptolemies (292-246 BCE), and those between the Seleucids and the Romans (190 BCE) — many invaders passed this outpost in search of conquest from Goths to Persians, from Crusaders to Turks, from Arabs to Mongols.
The first conqueror to pass Goat Castle was Mithridates who traveled to Ephesus from his base in Pontus (northern Turkey, along the Black Sea) during his rebellion against Roman rule in 86 BCE. The Ephesians responded enthusiastically for Mithridates’ call to extinguish Roman influence in Asia, and were part of a savage bloodletting which resulted in the deaths of 80,000 Italians and even those who even spoke with Latin accents.
Goat Castle saw its next train of invaders pour into the valley all the way from northern Europe: the Goths, who sacked Ephesus in 263 CE, destroying the Temple of Artemis — that Wonder of the World. This would mark the beginning of the end of Ephesus as THE major city along the Asian coast of the Aegean. Its harbor was silting in (the beach is now 3 km west of the “port” of ancient times. Also, the king who rebuilt the city in the wake of the Goths’ expulsion was Constantine the Great, who had another, greater city under construction on the Bosphorus. In fact, many columns from the wrecked Temple of Artemis were shipped to Constantinople for projects there.
The next invading force came from Persia and its Sasanian kings. They raced up the valley along the King’s Road and sacked Ephesus in 614 CE. In their wake, only 40 years later, and again in 702 CE, came attacks by an Arab army in that great expansion in the century after the death of the prophet, Muhammad. This period of warfare coincides with the construction of the castle in its present form.
The next period of extended warfar began in 1090, when Seljuk Turks streamed into the valley and sacked the city. It was back in Roman/Byzantine hands by 1147, when French Crusaders under Louis VII fought off a Seljuk-Greek ambush on Christmas Eve outside the city on the 2nd Crusade.
Turks would reconquer the area in 1390, by which time the city had shrunk to the size of a village. One other notable invader, Tamerlane, sacked Smyrna (Izmir) in 1402. It is likely that his Mongol forces ventured to Ephesus, although by that time there was little left of the grand, ancient city left to plunder.
Oh what a parade of conquerors has passed along the King’s Road under the ramparts of Goat Castle!
How Goat Castle got its Name
The naming of Keçi Kalesi is surprisingly hard to pin down. Conflicting accounts exist, one favoring the Byzantine defenders, another favoring attackers — both share the same details involing goats.
Walking from the castle to Ephesus, I began to understand the story better, and I will retell it below
Goat Castle got its name during an invasion by the Seljuk Turks in the final decade of the 11th Century, CE. After their victory at the Battle of Manzikert (1071 — just five years after the Norman Ivasion of England), the Seljuks had ranged throughout Anatolia, setting up principakities or “Beys” as they were called.
One of these Seljuk generals was Tanrihbermish (Turkish: Tanrıbermiş) who led an army to the castle in 1090. The Turks were horsemen who favored speed and deception in their attacks — including the legendary “Wolf Trap Maneuver.”
Tanrihbermish wasn’t willing to lay siege to the castle. Instead he gathered several goat herds from the farms in the area. Around sunset one evening, he attached lanterns to the horns of the billy goats and sent them climbing the mountain, in and among the hundreds of narrow paths that ascend from all directions.
Of course, Tanrihbermish sent hundreds of Seljuk soldiers as well.
The defenders blanched at the site of thousands of torch-bearing attackers climbing the mountain. In the twilight, they couldn’t distinguish Turk from, well, billy-goat. They abandoned their positions and raced down the road to Ephesus, with mounted Seljuks hot on their trail.
It was a rout, and the name, “Goat Castle,” preserves Tanrihbermish’s ingenuity to the present day.*
From Goat Castle to Ephesus
A section of the Efes-Mimas Trail leaves the castle and travels west towards the villages of Barutçu and Zetinköy. This trail is an amazing route and expands a 2.5-hour round trip to a full-day adventure.
This is a 26km leg, one I wouldn’t recommend without a tent for an overnight stop (there are some beautiul camping spots along the way). I modified this leg by cutting the official trail short and returning to Selçuk via farm roads — I got an early start, and I still covered about 20km.
As I left the castle and climbed a ridge, I found that I was on a widened road. It occurred to me that supplies from the garrison in Ephesus would come along this longer route, rather than up the steep slopes on the eastern face of the mountain.
About 600m from the castle I passed a cistern dug into the ground with stone walls and an arched ceiling. It might have been a chapel, but it reminded me of other Byzantine cisterns I have seen in the area, plus there was no apse or altar as one would find in a church. There was rubble all around the cistern, signs of a historic village where the garrison might have lived.
As I continued, the trail wound around to some gorgeous views of the castle from the higher ridges behind it. There wasn’t much of the prickly brush along this trail that one often finds on Aegean hiking trails — a few sections, not many.
Halfway to Ephesus the trail opened up into a wide, green meadow on the high top of the ridge. I ran into a shepherd here and paused to take in the view and the first wildflowers of spring. (One challenge on these hikes is to keep from leading the sheep astray. They are curious and will follow if I walk away. I have learned to keep still until something else grabs their attention and they move on. Sheep seldom focus on one thing for long.)
Notes about the Castle and the Hike
The first time I climbed, I followed Google Maps, which took me to a trailhead another 300 meters past the sign. It was a terrible mistake. Stick to the marked trails.
An amazing virutual tour of the castle lets you roam the battlements and look around outside. Alas, it doesn’t include the amazing view. You’ll just have to climb for yourself to see THAT.
*You won’t find this story in any other source. I have made it up, but it fits best with the facts that I have researched and my own — four — experiences climbing to Goat Castle and its environs.