Perge Aspendos Side Ancient Cities Tour

Three sites, three completely different moods, one day. Perge is a city plan you can walk. Aspendos is a single building that still works. Side is ruins with the sea behind them. Seeing them together is what makes the day worth taking — you get a sense of how a Roman province actually functioned, instead of one photogenic fragment of it.

Perge spreads out rather than piles up. You come in past the round Hellenistic towers, walk the colonnaded main street with its water channel still running down the centre, and pass the agora, the baths and the stadium. Because so much of the street grid survives, this is the easiest site on the coast to understand at ground level: shops along here, civic buildings over there, drainage under your feet.

The theatre at Aspendos is the reason people come to this region for ruins at all. It is the best-preserved Roman theatre in Anatolia — stage wall, seating and vaulted entrances essentially intact — and it is still used for performances, which is remarkable for a second-century building. Stand at the bottom while someone speaks from the top row and the engineering explains itself.

Side closes the day beside the sea. The Temple of Apollo columns stand at the tip of the peninsula where the old harbour was, and the modern town runs straight through the ancient one, so you pass the theatre and the agora on the way to a café. Late light here is the reason this stop comes last.

• Hotel pickup and drop-off in air-conditioned transport.
• A professional guide working in English, German or Russian.
• Entrance fees for all three sites, lunch at a local restaurant, bottled water and insurance.
• A full-day format, which is honestly what three sites of this size need.

Wear shoes you can cross uneven marble in, and bring a hat: there is almost no shade at Perge, and the stadium terraces reflect the heat straight back at you.