Photo: Carole Raddato from FRANKFURT, Germany (CC BY-SA 2.0)
A self-guided audio tour of Sardis, the capital of the kings of Lydia, in two parts: the Bath-Gymnasium, the synagogue and the shops of the late Roman city beside the main road, and the Temple of Artemis up the Pactolus valley, along a quiet road. The Pactolus carried gold down from Mount Tmolus, and Sardis is regarded as one of the first places where coins were minted; its last Lydian king, Croesus, lost the city to Cyrus in 547 or 546 BC. The walk starts in the Byzantine Shops, where menorahs are carved in one shop and crosses in another, and goes into the synagogue, whose main hall could hold nearly a thousand people, and the two-storey Marble Court of the Bath-Gymnasium. Across the road are the House of Bronzes and the Lydian fortification, still about ten metres high. Up the valley stand the altar and the Temple of Artemis, begun soon after 281 BC, with two marble columns still standing as they have since antiquity, and the small Church M, a place of Christian worship by AD 400. The acropolis above is a steep climb.
10 narrations, yours to keep — no subscription, no expiry. Works offline once downloaded, and if it isn’t for you we’ll refund it.
Going somewhere with no signal? Put the guide on your home screen first, then download it from that icon while you are on wi-fi — that way you download once, and it works in airplane mode with no roaming charges. Show me the order →
Every claim in this tour traces back to a named source — excavation records, the heritage authority for the site, and the primary texts themselves. Nothing is copied from other guidebooks, and anything we can't source doesn't make the recording.
Each stop is built from OpenStreetMap · 6 features in this old town (the field-surveyed mapping database behind Apple Maps), Wikidata · 7 cross-referenced entries (peer-reviewed structured records), the heritage authority below, and the primary historical texts where they exist.
Cross-referenced against Modern excavation publications · academic peer-review.
Every sentence is checked against those sources before it is recorded. If a claim can't be traced, it doesn't make the audio.
Every tour is reviewed by a person before it goes on sale. Stop selection, the route and anything ambiguous come back to the editor for a decision, and those questions routinely send a stop back for another accuracy pass. Nothing publishes on a machine’s say-so.
Spot anything inaccurate? Email [email protected] — fixed in the next pass.
Shops, workshops and eating places along the colonnaded street, with menorahs carved in one shop and crosses in another.
Part of the Bath-Gymnasium complex, discovered in 1962, its main hall over 50 metres long and able to hold nearly a thousand people.
The two-storey colonnaded centre of the Bath-Gymnasium, a marble-faced setting for the imperial cult, dedicated to Caracalla, Geta and Julia Domna.
The Lydian city wall, still about ten metres high and at least twenty metres wide.
Begun soon after 281 BC in local marble; two of its columns still stand as they have since antiquity.
A small brick-and-rubble church set against the corner of the Temple of Artemis, a place of Christian worship by AD 400.
Tap "Start Walking Tour" and allow location access. The map shows all 10 narration points.
Follow the suggested route or explore freely. GPS tracks your position. Reach a site and the narration plays automatically.
Each site has its own narration. 10 narration points.
Narrations play when you reach each site. No buttons, no track numbers. Walk naturally — the stories find you.
Premium narration that sounds like a documentary. Warm and knowledgeable, not a textbook reading.
Every narration is drafted, cross-checked against primary sources, then passed through a second editorial pass that strips unsupported claims. Dates, names, and citations verified.
See all narration points on the map. Tap any point to hear it early or replay it later.
Every narrated point in Sardis — the Lydian Capital and the City of Croesus, each with its own narration.
Spend an hour or a full day. Skip sites, revisit favourites, take breaks. The tour adapts to you.
10 narration points, including Byzantine Shops, Synagogue, Marble Court, House of Bronzes and Lydian Fortification. That is about 19 minutes of narration in all, and you walk between the stops at your own pace.
Yes. It plays in your phone’s browser as you walk: no guide, no group, no app to install and no fixed start time.
Three ways, all built in:
The map-tap option means you can stand anywhere — even at home before you travel — and play any narration. GPS just makes it hands-free while you’re actually walking the site.
No. Use the “Download for offline” button before you go, and the entire tour — audio, maps, narration text — works without any data connection. Tap-to-play and the map both work fully offline. GPS itself doesn’t need data; only the download does.
Add the icon first, then download from the icon. On iPhone a guide downloaded in Safari cannot be seen by the home screen icon, so downloading first means downloading the whole thing twice.
Putting it on your home screen — iPhone or iPad (Safari):
On Android (Chrome): tap the three-dot menu at the top right, tap Add to Home screen (some phones say Install app), then confirm. On Android either order works.
If you opened this link from inside Instagram, Facebook or Gmail, you are in that app’s built-in browser. It cannot add anything to your home screen, and a guide downloaded there is thrown away when the app closes. Open the link in Safari or Chrome first.
Two backstops. First, the map shows every site — just tap the marker for the place in front of you. Second, you can manually queue any narration even when GPS is off. The platform never assumes GPS works; it’s the convenience layer, not the gate.
The audio runs ~1–2 hours total, but you walk at your own pace. 10 narration points across the site. Most visitors take 2–4 hours; some spread it over multiple visits. Once you buy it, it’s yours — there’s no expiry and no subscription. Come back next year if you like; the link in your receipt always works.
One purchase covers one device session. Most couples share earbuds and use a single phone — the audio is paced for that. If you want everyone listening on their own device, each person needs their own purchase. We do not gate sharing aggressively; we trust visitors to do the right thing.
Full refund if you never trigger a single narration on-site. Partial refund based on how far you got. See the refund policy for specifics.