What you will see

Antalya, marking the centre of Turkey’s south coast, sprawls across the low plateau that once defined the western edge of Roman Pamphylia and included some of Rome’s most populous, prosperous cities, such as Aspendos, Perge and Side.

In Antalya’s hinterland you come first to Termessos, then you must drive up and over the watershed to seek out Sagallasos, the great city endowed by the emperor Hadrian in mountainous Pisidia. ‘Armed with the accounts of Quintus Curtius, Arrian and Freya Stark, and carrying large-scale maps published by the British War Office in 1957, we followed Alexander’s footsteps north from Antalya to Termessos,’ writes Brian Sewell in The Road to Godhead (Cornucopia 2), ‘a city that he briefly and unsuccessfully besieged, impatient to move on.’

To the west, between Antalya and the Bodrum peninsula lies Turkey’s most obviously beautiful coastline, peppered with wonderful ruins, such as Phaselis and Caunus, and equally welcoming coves. Although it is wonderful driving country, as Christian Tyler writes in A Hard Day’s Sailing (Cornucopia 18), ‘A good solution is to approach ancient sites from the sea.’ This is the coast best known for its gulet cruises.