Ruins of Turkey

The best preserved classical city in the eastern Mediterranean, on the Aegean coast in what was Ionia, inscribed by UNESCO in 2015. The standing ruins are Hellenistic and Roman: the Library of Celsus, the theatre that held 25,000, the marble street and the terrace houses with their mosaics under a modern roof. The Temple of Artemis, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, is now a single re-erected column in a field. Come at opening or after four.

Nine cities built on top of each other over about three thousand years on a mound near Canakkale, inscribed by UNESCO in 1998, and the site Heinrich Schliemann dug into in 1870 looking for Homer. Be clear about what you get: this is stratigraphy rather than architecture, low walls and trenches with signage explaining which layer is which. The excellent Troy Museum next door, opened in 2018, is what makes the visit worth it. The wooden horse at the entrance is a modern prop.

The oldest known monumental architecture anywhere, built from about 9500 BC near Sanliurfa in southeastern Turkey, and inscribed by UNESCO in 2018. It is roughly seven thousand years older than Stonehenge and was raised by people who had not yet developed farming or pottery, which is why it rewrote the standard account of how civilisation began. Note the location: this is 1,100 km from Istanbul, not near it, and it is reached from Sanliurfa.

A Roman theatre of the second century AD about 45 km east of Antalya, and the most complete one anywhere in the Mediterranean, with the stage building and all 41 rows of seating intact. The acoustics are the reason it is still used for opera and ballet in summer. The rest of the city, an aqueduct, a basilica and a stadium, lies up the hill behind and is largely ignored by visitors, so walk up. It pairs easily with Perge and Side in one day out of Antalya.

A Greek and then Roman spa city built on top of the Pamukkale travertines in Denizli province, inscribed by UNESCO in 1988 as a joint cultural and natural site. The scale surprises people: a theatre, a colonnaded street, a Temple of Apollo and the largest ancient necropolis in Turkey, with over a thousand tombs. The Antique Pool, where you swim among fallen columns, is inside the site and charged separately. One ticket covers terraces and ruins.

A Pisidian city on a mountain saddle at about 1,000 metres inside a national park north of Antalya, and the one on this list that Alexander decided not to besiege. It is among the least visited major sites in Turkey because reaching the ruins means a steep walk of half an hour or more from the car park through forest. The reward is a theatre with a view down the valley and rock tombs scattered through the pines with almost nobody around. Take water and proper shoes.

A Greek and Roman city about 18 km east of Antalya between the Catarrhactes and Cestrus rivers, and the easiest large site to visit from the city. What stands is impressive and flat: a colonnaded street with a water channel running down the middle, Roman baths, an agora, a stadium that held 12,000 and two Hellenistic towers at the gate. Much of the sculpture found here is in the Antalya Museum, so the two go together. There is very little shade.

A Lycian port city on three small bays at Tekirova near Kemer, and the only site on this list where you can swim from the ruins. That is the appeal: an aqueduct running down to the shore, a theatre in the pines above and a Roman street ending at a beach, with the sea over the harbour walls. It is inside the Olympos Beydaglari national park. Bring swimming things and go early, because tour boats stop here in the middle of the day.

A Pisidian city at about 900 metres in the Koprulu Canyon national park, reached on a mountain road from the Antalya coast past a Roman bridge that is still in use. The village of Altinkaya sits among the ruins, which is what makes it different: sheep graze the theatre and children sell tea. The theatre and the stadium are the substance. It is best combined with rafting on the Kopru river, which is what most of the traffic on that road is for.

Five re-erected marble columns on the point at the end of Side's peninsula, from a temple of the second century AD, and the most photographed ruin on the Turkish coast because of where it stands: directly on the sea with the town behind it. It takes ten minutes to see. Go at sunset, when the light comes through the columns from the west. The larger Side theatre and agora are a short walk back up the main street and are worth more time.

A Lycian city grown over by forest in a river valley that runs down to a beach south of Kemer, and the ruins are scattered through the trees rather than laid out, so you come across them: a theatre, a temple gate, sarcophagi, a Byzantine church. It is a twenty minute walk through the site to the sea. The Chimaera flames, natural methane vents that burn on the hillside above nearby Cirali, are the other reason people come, and they are best after dark.

The capital of the Hittite empire, inscribed by UNESCO in 1986, on high ground near Bogazkale in Corum province, and the oldest imperial capital on this list at around 1600 BC. The site is large and you drive between the parts of it: the Lion Gate, the Sphinx Gate, the Great Temple and the Yazilikaya rock sanctuary with its carved processions of gods. The cuneiform archive found here is how much of what is known about the Hittites is known. It is a long way from anywhere.

A Hellenistic city on a terrace below Mount Mycale, south of Kusadasi, and the best surviving example of a Greek grid plan anywhere, because it was laid out in one go in the fourth century BC and never rebuilt over. The Temple of Athena Polias, the bouleuterion and the theatre with its front-row marble seats are all legible. It sits above what was once the sea and is now silted plain. It is quiet, shaded by pines, and usually empty.

A Roman and Byzantine city on the southernmost point of mainland Turkey, near Anamur about 130 km east of Alanya, and one of the largest sites in the country with almost no visitors. Baths with surviving mosaic floors, an odeon, an aqueduct and a necropolis of several hundred tombs run down a slope to a shingle beach. Very little is fenced or labelled. It is a two hour drive from Alanya on a slow coast road, which is why it stays empty.