Termessos
Pisidian Mountain City At About 1,050 Metres Inside Gulluk Dagi (Termessos) National Park; On The UNESCO Tentative List · Korkuteli, Antalya
Alexander the Great looked at Termessos, worked out what taking it would cost and walked away, which is the fact every visitor is told and is the best possible introduction. The Pisidians built it at a thousand metres on a saddle between two peaks in what is now a national park of pine and wild olive above Antalya, and the approach has not got much easier: a winding park road, then a rough stone path that climbs for thirty to forty-five minutes with no shade and no water. What is at the top is worth every step. The theatre is cut into a shoulder of rock with a sheer drop behind the stage and a view straight down the mountain to the sea, and it is arguably the most dramatically sited ancient building in Turkiye. Around it, tumbled by earthquakes and half-swallowed by forest, lie cisterns, a gymnasium and a necropolis of sarcophagi thrown about like dropped boxes. You will probably have all of it to yourself.
Gulluk Dagi Termessos Milli Parki, Korkuteli Yolu, Antalya, Korkuteli, Antalya, Turkiye
Open daily with longer summer hours and an earlier winter close, and the park gate closes well before the site does - leave time to walk down. The upper path is rough and can close after heavy rain, snow or fire. There is no shelter and no water above the car park. Check conditions locally before driving up.