JOURNEY TO NOSTOS

Week 11 — Pamphylia into Cilicia

From theatrical cities to the working edge of the eastern Mediterranean

Route
Antalya → Side → Aspendos → Alanya → Anamur → Anemurium → Kızkalesi → Tarsus

7 days • 3 bases • transition week • theatre-to-infrastructure

At a glance

Bases
Side (2) • Alanya (2) • Anamur (3)

Hellenic anchors

Perge • Aspendos • Side • Anemurium • Tarsus

How to use this week

Begin here, or arrive from Lycia.
This week marks a shift: from Greek cities built for spectacle to coastal systems built for movement, supply, and connection.
Do not rush the eastern turn.

Prologue — Where the Stage Becomes a Corridor

Pamphylia is where the Greek city performs.
Cilicia is where it works.

This week traces that change.
Theatres and colonnades give way to roads, ports, and frontier cities.
Urban form becomes pragmatic, coastal, and strategic.

Greek language and structure remain, but they are now braided with Near Eastern trade, imperial logistics, and long-distance movement.
The Hellenic world does not end here—it stretches, adapts, and thins without breaking.

Route logic

Linear movement • short-to-moderate drives • coastal continuity • restraint at major sites

Day by day

Day 1 — Antalya → Side

Overnight: Side

Focus
Leaving the regional centre.

Hellenic layer
Side compresses theatre, temple, harbour, and street into a walkable peninsula—Greek urban life at its most legible.

Do one thing properly
Enter on foot.
Walk straight through the ruins to the water.
Stop.

Day 2 — Side → Aspendos → Side

Overnight: Side

Focus
Theatre as calibrated space.

Hellenic layer
Aspendos survives because it functioned perfectly—acoustics, proportion, crowd logic.

Do one thing properly
Sit mid-tier.
Listen before imagining sound.

Day 3 — Side → Alanya

Overnight: Alanya

Focus
The fortified coast.

Hellenic layer
As the coastline tightens, defence and elevation begin to matter more than display.

Do one thing properly
One harbour loop only.
Save the citadel for another hour.

Day 4 — Alanya

Overnight: Alanya

Focus
Settlement under pressure.

Hellenic layer
Greek coastal logic persists under later layers—Roman, Byzantine, Seljuk—without erasure.

Do one thing properly
Early walk along the walls.
Leave the afternoon open.

Day 5 — Alanya → Anamur → Anemurium

Overnight: Anamur

Focus
Edge-of-the-world city.

Hellenic layer
Anemurium sits at the far working limit of Greek urban form—harbour, necropolis, street grid exposed to sea and weather.

Do one thing properly
Walk the necropolis slowly.
Let the city thin out around you.

Day 6 — Anamur → Kızkalesi → Tarsus

Overnight: Tarsus

Focus
The corridor opens inland.

Hellenic layer
Kızkalesi marks maritime control; Tarsus marks inland continuity—river, road, and learning.

Do one thing properly
Short coastal stop only.
Arrive Tarsus before dusk.

Day 7 — Tarsus

Overnight: Tarsus

Focus
The inland hinge.

Hellenic layer
Tarsus connects Greek education, Roman administration, and Near Eastern trade.
Here, the Hellenic world is fully entangled, not isolated.

Do one thing properly
River walk.
Old city lanes.
Early night.

Navigation

← Previous Week — Lycia
Next Week → The Levant
Back to Türkiye — Weeks 8–12

Optional: the long-form read

The manuscript treats this week as a structural turning point—where Greek urban confidence becomes connective tissue rather than display. (Paid)

If you’re ready, next we can move cleanly into Week 12 — The Levantine Approach or pause to lock a reusable Wix component (Week page as a saved section so you’re not reformatting each time).