Art And Culture in Side

The cultural programme in Side begins with what stands inside the town. Its Roman theatre was not set into a hillside, as was usual in Anatolia, but raised on vaults — an artificial structure, because flat ground by the sea offered no slope to lean on. Beside it a museum occupies former Roman baths: sarcophagi, statues and grave markers stand in rooms that were once the steam hall and the changing room. Across the road lie the agora and the monumental gate, and out on the point the columns of the Temple of Apollo.

The main excursion heads into Lycia: Demre, Myra and Kekova. There you meet a different burial culture — the Lycians cut their tombs straight into the cliff above the theatre, reproducing the shapes of wooden houses in stone. Demre holds the church of Saint Nicholas, bishop of Myra, the figure from whom the Christmas gift-giver grew. The sunken town off Kekova island is viewed from a glass-bottomed boat: a second-century earthquake dropped part of the buildings below the surface, and the masonry shows through the water.

The third site is the theatre at Aspendos, some thirty-five kilometres away and among the best preserved in the Mediterranean: the stage wall stands almost whole and the acoustics still work, with concerts held there in summer. Practical notes: nearly everything is open-air, shade is scarce and the stone uneven, so closed shoes and water matter. Dress with covered shoulders and knees for the church of Saint Nicholas.