The area's semi-tropical combination of palm trees, Roman ruins and minarets gives it the look of an old etching of the romantic, exotic east. During our stay in Antalya, we will explore the antiquities of the ruined cities of Aspendos and Perge. In Aspendos we will see the world's finest preservation of a second-century Roman theater. Perge, a city that reached its height under the Romans and Alexander the Great, is now a rich archaeological legacy with its ruins of a great theater, a stadium, and the colonnaded main street. In the afternoon, we will visit the Antalya museum followed by time to relax and enjoy the breathtaking view of the vast expanse of the Mediterranean from the private beach at the hotel.
Dinner is at the hotel.
We will depart Antalya in the early morning for Fethiye. St. Paul was taken to Rome as a prisoner from here on a journey that ended with a shipwreck off Malta. We will then proceed to Xanthos, the ancient capital of Lycia, where Herodotus recounted that when the Persian general Cyrus attacked Xanthus in the eighth century B.C., and the Lycian warriors saw that all was lost, every woman and child was compelled to commit suicide. The Lycian warriors then went out and fought until every last soul perished. Most of the antiquities remaining today date from Xanthus' Roman period.