The theatre, and why everyone stops there
The Roman theatre at Aspendos is the reason the name is on every excursion board on the coast. It survives in a state that is unusual for a building of its age — the stage wall is still standing, and the acoustics are good enough that it is still used for performances rather than kept behind a rope. If you have a spare morning on your holiday and you like old stones, it is worth the ticket on its own terms.
What tends to happen, though, is that a coach pulls in, everyone photographs the same view from the same step, and the coach leaves. The theatre becomes the whole of Aspendos in people's memory. It is a small part of it.
The aqueduct nobody photographs
A short distance from the theatre, an aqueduct crosses open ground on tall arches. It is not fenced, it is not queued for, and there is usually nobody at it. It carried water into the ancient city, and the section that still stands rises far higher than you expect from the road — the kind of structure that makes more sense when you are near it than in a photograph.
It is the sort of thing you notice properly from a track rather than from a car park, which is part of why the country around Aspendos rewards being out in it.
The Köprüçay, the river the safari runs beside
The river below Aspendos is the Köprüçay. The Greeks and Romans called it the Eurymedon, and if you have read about the ancient world you may have met the name before you ever met the water. It comes down out of the Taurus mountains, runs through a gorge inland, and by the time it reaches the Aspendos plain it has opened out and slowed down.
That widening is what creates the terrain we ride in. River sections, forest tracks, dust in high summer and mud after rain, all in natural land rather than on a purpose-built circuit. The Quad Safari takes place in the Aspendos area, around the Köprüçay River, with a combination of natural terrain, forest tracks and off-road trails — that is the whole answer to the question of where you actually go, and it is worth being clear that it is not Belek town, which is where we collect you.
What the safari does not include, said plainly
This is a riding tour in the countryside near Aspendos. It is not a sightseeing tour. It does not stop at the theatre, it does not include a ticket to the theatre, and there is no guided archaeology on it. If somebody sells you a quad safari on the promise that you will tour the ruins from the saddle, they are selling you something we do not run.
We say this because the mismatch is easy to create and miserable to be on the receiving end of. A guest who booked expecting monuments and got a dusty afternoon on a riverside track has been let down by the description, not by the day.
- The safari runs in natural land around the Köprüçay — river sections, forest tracks and off-road trails.
- It does not enter the archaeological site and no entry ticket is included.
- Mud depends on conditions. After rain there is plenty; in a dry spell there is dust instead.
- Round-trip hotel transfer, your instructor, insurance and a helmet come with the ride.
Doing both in one day
The safari runs two sessions a day, a morning one and an afternoon one, which is convenient if you want the ruins as well. Take the morning session and the rest of the day is yours for the theatre; take the afternoon session and you have the whole morning free. Either way you are back at your hotel with a working half-day left.
The pickup run comes along the coast, and each area has its own average pickup time rather than a single time for everybody. If you are working out how to fit the two things together, the pickup guide has the area averages laid out.
Getting out here from the coast
Everyone on this tour is collected from their hotel and brought inland — from Belek and Kadriye, from Boğazkent, and from further west at Kundu, Lara and Konyaaltı. From a Belek hotel the transfer to the riding area takes approximately 35–40 minutes, which is enough for the view out of the window to change from resort landscaping to farmland.
That transfer is the part people underestimate. You are not riding out of the back of a hotel; you are being taken to a different kind of country, and the ride starts when you get there.