We flew from the Cappadocia area to Antalya, a good sized city along the “turquoise coast” of the Mediterranean. Jason and I decided to spring for a rental car for the remainder of the trip in order to avoid arranging tours throughout the rest of our time in Turkey. Gas is the second highest in Europe here! At least we got a diesel car – a Renault Symbol. It cost $118 USD to fill the tank! Luckily, we also got Turkey SIM cards so we are able to navigate using Google maps. It’s working out pretty well so far.
We stayed at another fabulous hotel in Antalya called Dogan hotel. Btw, all of our hotels have been extremely reasonable with just booking a few days in advance on Kayak. The hotel pool was just being filled for the season on our second day, but we opted for taking a dip in the Mediterranean at a private beach five minutes walk from our hotel.
For our first full day, we drove 45 km to the ancient overgrown cities of Aspendos and then Perge. What a treat! Again, very few tourists and perfect weather in the 70s. Seeing all of these ancient ruins under the backdrop of towering mountains is really humbling. There is so much history here. Alexander the Great conquered most of the cities we’ve seen around 300 BC.
Perge was excellent and we almost skipped it on our way back to Antalya. It is currently being excavated and we were able to see men working on digging out the city. There are ancient theaters, baths, basilicas and markets at most sights.
Back in Antalya, we stumbled upon a great little bar with an awesome live house band playing traditional Turkish favorites. Jason and I were pulled up to do some line dancing with a group of four local patrons. We loved this place and ended up going the next night too. We've also been seeing celebrity look-alikes in every country we visit. We wished we had been sneaking pictures throughout the trip. The bar had total Ben Affleck doppelganger.
After three nights in Antalya, we headed out for our drive to Pamukkale (about four hours northwest). We stopped at another ancient city called Termessos. It is at the top of the mountains and required a scary 20-minute drive and steep hike to the main part of the ruins. The Pisidians fought off Alexander the Great in the 4th century BC here. Our favorite find in Termessos was the very well preserved theater sitting in the shadow of a huge mountain and overlooking the Mediterranean and Antalya below.