You can see the plan of ancient Side at the entrance to the old town. Most of the ancient sights (Amphitheater, Vespasian Arch, Agora, Nymphaeum Fountain, fortress walls, Colonnaded Street) are located compactly at the base of the peninsula. At the tip of the peninsula, there remained the ruins of the Temple of Apollo and the ancient port.
After the heyday of Roman times, from VII century Arabs began to raid the city, and as a result its population was significantly reduced. In X century a devastating earthquake occurred here, which destroyed most of the buildings, after which the residents left the city. And only in XIX century Cretan Muslims settled on the ruins of Side.
So, the city began to gradually recover. The Old Town of Side has almost completely retained the layout that it had in antiquity. The roads that tourists walk on were paved two thousand years ago but the houses were built in XIX century. It is especially interesting to walk along the embankments of Side. There are many restaurants in the city. In many places you can see the ruins of the fortress walls. In the eastern part of the city there remained the ruins of the fifth century Roman baths.
A large space in the area of the Northern Gate was never built up, so there remained the ruins of Roman houses. As elsewhere in the Roman Empire, houses were connected to water supply and sewage systems. In many houses, the floors were covered with mosaics.
Water was supplied to the city from the Manavgat River, and if you go north from Side, towards the Green Canyon, you can see the ruins of a Roman aqueduct. Its length is 30 km, more than half of which were laid in mountain tunnels.
