Side
Pamphylian Port City With A Roman Theatre Of Some 15,000 Seats And The Temple Of Apollo On The Point; A Modern Resort Town Built Inside The Ruins · Manavgat, Antalya
Side was the biggest port in Pamphylia, rich enough on trade and on slaving to build a theatre for fifteen thousand people on flat ground, which meant raising the whole structure on vaulted arcades rather than cutting it into a hill - and that theatre is still the first thing you see. The oddity of the place is what happened next: a fishing village grew up inside the ruined city, and then a resort grew out of the village, so the colonnaded street is now a shopping street, the agora has restaurants along one side, and ancient column drums stand between the ice cream shops. On the tip of the peninsula, five re-erected columns of the Temple of Apollo face west over the sea, and at sunset they are photographed more than almost anything else on this coast. The ruins are magnificent. The town around them is a shopping strip, and it is better to know that in advance. The temple headland, at least, is free and open to anyone.
Side Mahallesi, Side Antik Kenti, Manavgat, Manavgat, Antalya, Turkiye
The town and the Temple of Apollo headland are open public space at all hours and free to walk into. The theatre and the Side Museum are ticketed and keep daytime hours with an earlier winter close. Most restaurants, shops and boats run from about April to October and a large share of the town closes in winter.