Aspendos and Perge: Antalya's Two Great Ancient Cities

Antalya has two ancient cities that would be the star attraction of almost any other region, and they sit within an easy drive of each other on the same side of the city. Aspendos has the best preserved Roman theatre in the world. Perge has a colonnaded street, a stadium and a gate complex that let you walk through a Roman city rather than just look at it. This guide covers what survives at each, how much time to allow, how to combine them in one day and how to get there from your resort.

Aspendos: the theatre that never fell down

Most Roman theatres reach us as a bowl of seating with the stage building reduced to rubble. Aspendos is the exception. Its stage wall still stands to full height, the seating rows are intact, and the vaulted passages that fed the crowd in and out are still the way you enter. The effect is startling: you walk through a dark arched tunnel and step out into a complete Roman auditorium. It was built in the 2nd century AD, in the reign of Marcus Aurelius, by a local architect named Zenon, and it seated something in the order of fifteen to twenty thousand people.

The survival is not luck. In the Seljuk period the building was reused as a caravanserai, which meant it was maintained rather than quarried for stone, and that is why it is standing while its neighbours are not. You can still see Seljuk decoration in places, layered over the Roman fabric.

The acoustics, and why they matter

Aspendos is famous for sound. Because the stage building is complete, it still does what a Roman theatre was designed to do: reflect and project the voice. Stand in the orchestra and speak normally, and you will be heard high in the seating. Guides love to demonstrate this and it is worth pausing to listen rather than photograph. The theatre is not a ruin being interpreted for you. It is a working piece of acoustic engineering that happens to be nearly two thousand years old.

That is also why it is still used. In summer the theatre hosts opera and ballet performances, and seeing a production there, at night, in a full Roman auditorium, is one of the more memorable things you can do on the Turkish coast. Programmes change from year to year, so check what is on when you plan.

Beyond the theatre at Aspendos

Nearly everyone visits the theatre and leaves, which is a shame, because the city itself sits on the hill behind it. Climb up and you find the agora, a basilica, a nymphaeum and the remains of the council house, with long views over the Eurymedon plain. Most striking of all is the aqueduct, whose tall pressure towers still stride across the fields north of the site. It is one of the most impressive surviving Roman water systems in Anatolia, and from the acropolis you get the whole line of it at once. The climb takes a little effort and there is no shade, so save it for a cooler hour.

Perge: walking through a Roman city

Perge is a different experience. Where Aspendos is one overwhelming building, Perge is a whole city plan you can walk. You enter past the Roman gate and almost immediately meet the two great round towers of the Hellenistic gate, which are the signature image of the site. Behind them is a horseshoe shaped courtyard that a wealthy citizen named Plancia Magna rebuilt and decorated with statues in the 2nd century AD, putting her own name on the city's front door at a time when that was remarkable for a woman.

From there the colonnaded street runs away in a long straight line, with the stumps of its columns on both sides and a water channel down the middle that once ran cool the length of the street. You can follow it for several hundred metres. Off to the sides are the agora, with its shops around a square, and a large Roman bath complex where the different hot and cold rooms are still legible.

The stadium and theatre at Perge

Just outside the walls are two more enormous structures. The stadium is one of the best preserved in Anatolia, a long arena with tiers of seating raised on vaulted chambers, and those chambers were shops opening outward to the road. Next to it, the theatre is built into the slope in the Greek manner but finished with a Roman stage building, and it carries carved reliefs that are worth looking at closely. Access to the theatre and stadium interiors can vary with conservation work, so treat them as a bonus rather than a certainty.

Perge, the museum and Saint Paul

Perge was excavated intensively and it produced an exceptional haul of Roman sculpture. Most of it did not stay on site. If you want to see the emperors, gods and dancers that once stood along these streets, they are in the Antalya Museum, and the museum makes far more sense after you have walked the city they came from. Doing the site in the morning and the museum in the afternoon is a genuinely good day.

Perge also appears in the New Testament: it is the city where Paul and Barnabas landed in Pamphylia on the first missionary journey, which gives the site an extra layer of interest for many visitors.

How to combine both in one day

The two sites sit on the same axis east of Antalya, so the logistics are simple. A plan that works well:

• Early morning: Perge, while it is still cool and the light is good on the colonnaded street.
• Late morning: Aspendos, about 30 km further east, for the theatre and, if you have the energy, the acropolis and aqueduct.
• Lunch: in Serik or by the Köprülü canyon road, or push on to Side.
• Afternoon: either the Antalya Museum to see Perge's statues, or the ruins at Side and the Manavgat waterfall if you would rather stay east.

If you only have time for one, choose by taste. Aspendos gives you a single unforgettable building in an hour. Perge rewards anyone who likes to wander and imagine a city.

Tickets, opening hours and practicalities

Both are ticketed archaeological sites with standard opening hours that shorten in winter, and both are covered by the museum pass schemes that many visitors buy. Prices and hours change from season to season, so check the current details when you plan rather than relying on an old guidebook. There are cafes and toilets at the entrances, but very little inside, so take water in with you.

Neither site is difficult walking, but both are uneven underfoot: marble paving polished by two thousand years of feet, loose stone, and low kerbs everywhere. Trainers or walking shoes are much better than sandals. Pushchairs are hard work at Perge and awkward at Aspendos.

When to go

Spring and autumn are ideal. In April, May, September and October the temperature is comfortable for two or three hours of walking on open stone, and the sites are quieter. In July and August go at opening time or in the last two hours before closing, and treat the middle of the day as unusable: there is essentially no shade at either place, and the marble reflects the heat back at you. Winter is mild and often beautifully empty, though days are short and rain is possible.

Getting there from your resort

Both sites are rural and neither is well served by public transport for a day trip. Your options are:

• Private transfer with a driver: the simplest. Fixed price, door to gate, the driver waits at each site and takes you between them, so you are not standing at a roadside looking for a taxi at midday.
• Organised excursion: widely sold in the resorts, usually bundling Perge, Aspendos and the Manavgat waterfall on a fixed schedule.
• Hire car: fine if you already have one. Both sites have parking and the roads are good.
• Dolmus and taxi: possible in stages via Aksu and Serik, but slow and awkward, and getting back from Aspendos can be the hard part.

Journey times are short from most of the coast: roughly 25 minutes to Perge and 45 minutes to Aspendos from the airport, a little more from Kemer or Side. Fixed transfer prices for every resort are on our destinations page.

Practical tips

• Do Perge first: it is bigger, more exposed and better in cool light.
• Agree a pickup time with your driver at each site so the day has a shape.
• Take more water than you think you need, especially between June and September.
• Look up at Aspendos: the best carving is high on the stage wall.
• At Perge, walk the full length of the colonnaded street rather than turning back halfway.
• If the summer opera festival is running, consider an evening performance instead of a midday visit.

Is it worth it?

If you have any interest at all in the ancient world, these two sites justify a day of a beach holiday. Aspendos is not merely well preserved for Turkey, it is the standard against which other Roman theatres are measured, and standing in it is a genuinely different experience from looking at a ruin. Perge gives you the other half of the picture: not one monument but a city, with its shopping street, its baths, its stadium and the name of the woman who rebuilt its gate still on the stone. Together they explain what this coast was two thousand years ago far better than either does alone.