This private Dikili shore trip explores the Acropolis and Museum of Pergamum, the ancient health center of Asclepion, and the modern city of Bergama. Your licensed guide meets you in front of Dikili's port terminal.
As you drive north from Dikili, you pass fertile fields and olive groves on the roughly 16-mile (26km) route to Bergama, the modern town built around and above ancient Pergamum. Pergamum was once a capital of the Attalid Kingdom and a major center of Hellenistic culture, and its acropolis and surrounding sites were inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2014.
Take the cable car up to the Acropolis to see the remains of the citadel and city walls, the foundation terrace of the Altar of Zeus (its sculpted friezes are now displayed in Berlin's Pergamon Museum), and the Royal Palace. According to the ancient writer Plutarch, the Library of Pergamum once held 200,000 scrolls, later given to Cleopatra, though historians debate whether the gift actually took place. Walk through the Agora and see the restored Temple of Trajan and the remains of the Temples of Demeter, Athena, and Dionysus. On the steep slopes of the Acropolis, you overlook the theater, one of the steepest in the ancient world with seating for about 10,000 spectators, and see the modern town and surrounding hills stretch into the distance.
Next you visit the Asclepion, a healing center dating to the 4th century BC and one of the most important sites of ancient Pergamum. Here, patients received herbal, aquatic, physical, and psychological treatment for their ailments. You visit the Temple of Asclepios and the amphitheater, and walk the sacred corridor and the ancient, arcaded, marble-paved boulevard, with the Acropolis towering above in the distance.
You then have free time for lunch in modern Bergama (meal not included), or we can arrange for you to return to your ship for lunch instead. This is a rural part of Turkey, so you will not find high-end restaurants, but you can have a typical meal enjoyed by local working people. Very little English is spoken here, so your guide joins you for lunch to translate and make suggestions. Note that many restaurants in the area do not serve alcohol. Early in the afternoon, you return to the cruise terminal in Dikili.
