Termessos at Sunrise

Termessos at sunrise is an experience that separates the ancient city from virtually every other archaeological site in Turkey. The city, perched at over 1,050 meters in Güllük Dağı National Park about 30 kilometers northwest of Antalya, requires a 30-to-45-minute uphill forest hike from the national park gate, making it necessary to begin the ascent well before first light to reach the theatre and main ruins at dawn. The forest trail climbs through pine, cedar, and juniper growth that transforms in the pre-dawn hours into a world of shadow and silhouette, and the sound of the forest at this hour—birds of prey calling, mountain wind through the pines—is part of the experience as much as the ruins themselves. At sunrise, the Taurus Mountain ridges to the east and north emerge from the darkness in graduated planes of grey and rose, and the theatre's stage opening frames a view of peaks and sky that is continuously changing in the first hour of light. Morning mist frequently fills the lower valleys visible from the ruins, leaving the high points of Termessos apparently floating in a sea of cloud. The necropolis sarcophagi catch the first directional light in a way that is particularly atmospheric among the forest. By 9 AM the mist has typically cleared and the few other visitors who have made the early start begin to arrive, but in the hour between sunrise and this point the ruins are usually entirely empty. The physical demands of the sunrise approach—darkness, mountain terrain, cold—are significant and require preparation, but the reward is an ancient city seen under conditions no daylight visitor encounters.