Antalya Airport to Myra Ancient City transfer
Myra sits at the edge of Demre, and it amounts to one cliff and one theatre. Lycian tomb façades are cut in tiers into the rock face, carved to imitate the timber houses of the living, and directly below them stands a Roman theatre whose seating bowl and broken stage wall have come through in unusual condition. Both are inside a single enclosure, taken in at one look rather than one after the other. The Church of Saint Nicholas — the bishop who later became Father Christmas — stands separately, in the town itself. Around it the plain lies under sheeting, right up to the fence.
Between Antalya Airport and the ruins on the edge of Demre lie 157 km and about 130 minutes, and most of it is mountain. The car leaves the terminal, swings round the southern side of the city and comes down to the shore at Konyaaltı, where the road immediately starts lifting again. Then comes the long graded haul over the Beydağları, climb and descent of much the same length, with the pace set by the heaviest vehicle in the line ahead and few places to get past it. At Kumluca the day feels half gone. After that the road runs flat across the greenhouse plain into Demre.
Visiting Myra Ancient City
Reckon on about three hours on the ground here, and see what that does to the day: with roughly two hours and ten minutes of road at each end, Myra is not an afternoon excursion but a whole day taken out of the holiday. The practical booking is one car that stays with you rather than a drop-off and a separate pickup, because the two things you came for are not in the same place. The ruins are one address and the church is another; the gap between them is short, though short is not the same as pleasant with the sun overhead, and closing it is exactly what a waiting driver does for you.
Start at the site while the sun is still low. The cliff faces the right way in the morning, and the carved fronts read as architecture then; once the sun swings round, the rock flattens and goes grey. From the entrance it is a short walk in, though the ground is loose and stony rather than made up. The tombs are looked at from below — no path goes up to them and none is needed — and the theatre lies directly beneath. Its stone seating is worn and uneven, and the bowl holds the heat: shade on this open ground is all but absent.
The church in town is usually kept for the second half, and the order works. Indoors follows outdoors, cool and dim where it had just been bright and hot, and it asks nothing more of your legs. Together the two fill the morning and a good part of the early afternoon, which is why the return leg wants to be agreed before you set off rather than improvised on the spot. If you want more out of the drive, pair it with a second stop on the same coast instead of making the road twice.
- The tombs are seen from the ground; binoculars or a long lens show you more of the carving than any extra walking will.
- Morning is when the cliff face is worth photographing — by mid-afternoon the light is behind it and the relief goes flat.
- The theatre's seating is polished by use and broken in places, so take the tiers slowly and watch where the stone has given way.
- Carry water and something for your head: neither the bowl of the theatre nor the open ground under the tombs gives any shade.