Cover up, and carry more water than you think
Closed walking shoes, loose light-coloured fabric that covers your shoulders, a wide-brim hat and at least a litre of water per person. Antalya's ancient cities are essentially shadeless fields of marble and limestone, so the heat arrives twice — once from the sky and once bouncing back off the stone at your face.
Our Perge and Aspendos day trip puts it plainly in its own packing notes: bring water, because summer temperatures can top 35°C. That is the number to dress for.
Shoes: this is a walking day, not a photo stop
Perge is a proper archaeological visit — a colonnaded marble street, Hellenistic gates and Roman baths, over uneven ancient paving. At Aspendos you climb the stone galleries of the theatre. At Myra you cross broken ground beneath the cliff tombs. None of that works in flip-flops, and it works badly in fashion trainers with a smooth sole.
Take closed, sturdy shoes with a grippy sole. Sandals with a proper back strap are a defensible second choice; anything that slides off your heel is not. Ancient marble that has been polished by two thousand years of feet is genuinely slippery, and it does not need to be wet to be so.
Fabric beats coverage, and coverage beats sunscreen
The instinct in 35°C is to wear as little as possible. On a ruins day that backfires: bare shoulders in full sun for several hours burn regardless of how carefully you apply sunscreen, and you cannot reapply on your own back. Loose linen or cotton — a long-sleeved shirt over a t-shirt, light trousers or a long skirt — is cooler in direct sun than exposed skin, because the fabric is doing the shading.
Colour matters more here than at the beach. Pale fabric reflects; dark fabric stores the heat and hands it back.
Cover your shoulders — and pack a wrap for Demre
Modest clothing is a considerate choice at cultural sites generally, and on the Demre, Myra and Kekova tour it stops being optional-ish: you go inside the Church of St. Nicholas, where the 4th-century bishop who became Santa Claus served, and it remains an active pilgrimage site. Modest dress is appreciated inside. A light scarf or cover-up that lives in your bag all day and goes on at the church door solves it without you having to walk around Myra in long sleeves.
The head and eyes are where the day is won
- A wide-brim hat, not a cap. A baseball cap leaves your ears and the back of your neck exposed, and on a shadeless site those are the first places to burn.
- Sunglasses. The glare off white marble and limestone at Perge is genuinely tiring — squinting for three hours is why people come back from ruins with a headache and blame the heat.
- Sunscreen applied at the hotel, not in the car park. And on the tops of your feet if you are in sandals.
Two tours, two different bags
Perge, Aspendos and Kurşunlu Waterfall
A six-hour day from Antalya, adults €50 and children aged 3–11 €30, with morning pickup after breakfast time, a licensed guide and lunch at a local restaurant included. There is no swim break on this programme — so do not wear swimwear under your clothes, which is exactly the mistake that makes an afternoon at the waterfall uncomfortable.
Carry cash. Entrance tickets are deliberately not bundled into the price and are paid at each gate: Perge €11 and Aspendos €15 per person, plus 95 TL for the Kurşunlu Waterfall park, per current listings. A Museum Card works at Perge and Aspendos but not at the waterfall.
Kekova, Demre and Myra
A ten-hour day, adults €75 and children aged 8–12 €62, with hotel pickup, guiding, lunch and the Kekova boat cruise included. This one does include water: swimming directly above the sunken city is forbidden because it is a protected archaeological zone, but when weather allows the boat pauses in a designated bay. So swimwear and a towel go in the bag — alongside the cover-up for the church and the walking shoes for Myra. Entrance fees for the church and Myra are paid locally, from age 8, and your guide arranges the tickets.
One honest note about July and August on this tour: time at the open-air sites may be shortened because of the heat. That is a safety call, not a shortcut.
Who these tours are not for
If your holiday plan is shade, a pool and a cold drink, a ruins day in August is not a tour to talk yourself into. Both trips involve moderate walking on uneven ground with very little cover, and the Kekova day is a long full day with an early start. Guests who struggle on rough surfaces, and anyone who wilts in real heat, will have a better time on a boat.
Equally, if you want a swim as part of your culture day, book Kekova rather than Perge — one has a swim stop and the other says so clearly.
Related reading
Going back to Aspendos after dark for a performance? The evening version of this question is answered in what to wear to an Aspendos evening show. For the other big walking-and-heat day on the coast, see what to wear and bring for Pamukkale, and for how a ruins day sits against the alternatives, the Antalya day trips compared.