🙂 Interesting ruins. Great food. Cheap Fakes!
🙁 The great unwashed…
Paul and I had put our hands up at a Charity Auction to get the bids going – unfortunately we won without intending to! So for only £100 and the cost of Easyjet flights to Antalya (55Kms away) we found ourselves in Side for our 19th wedding anniversary.
Side is a picturesque city located on ancient ruins. There are many luxury hotels and also small hotels lining the beaches which we avoided. The beaches here are long, wide and sandy, with a shallow drop to the sea, ideal for families with children. We spent most of our time in Old Side which was much quieter. Don’t miss to view the sunset at Apollo Temple in Old Town where Cleopatra met her lover Mark Antony long long time ago. There is a lovely little restaurant where you can enjoy a sea view with the ancient ruins in the background. The cocktails were fantastic and the owner a delight – which is why we spent a lot of our time here
Our first evening we found a delightful place called Orfoz to eat on the beach with very eager and enthusiastic waiters. The seafood grill is their speciality and was delicious.
It was fund exploring all the spice shops.
The next day we strolled around the ancient ruins. The Temple of Apollo is located at the end of Side’s peninsula.
The great ruins are among the most notable in Asia Minor. They cover a large promontory which a wall and a moat separate from the mainland. Archaeologists have been excavating Side since 1947 and intermittently continue to do so. The colossal theatre complex of the 2nd century is less well-preserved that of Aspendos, but it is almost as large, seating 15,000–20,000 people. It was converted into an open-air sanctuary with two chapels during Byzantine times (5th or 6th century).
Just amazing to wander around and imagine what it would have been like to love here all those years ago…
The res of our days were spent on the beach, sipping cocktails and dining on local produce and traditional food. We also bought some bargains including t-shirts and jeans.
