Background and Library Research for the Perfect Vacation

Once I’ve figured out my route around the site, I rewalk the whole route again, and again. Navigation around a site is paramount. When I’m showing a group around I don’t want to be spending my time trying to find my way, and I certainly want my route pre-planned to the best historical and dramatic effect.

After that it’s a case of scouring the libraries to pull out the latest excavation and survey reports. That’s where a top quality tour guide comes into their own, fresh knowledge and a lively perspective, rather than a spiel learned by rote, or material regurgitated from age old guide books.

Back in the office maps are pulled out and it all comes down to matching up the sites, the story, and the logistics. Many of the tours I arrange are archaeological cruises in Turkey aboard handbuilt wooden gulets. They’re a marvellous way to step back in time. Not only do you avoid the hotel changes, the roads, and traffic, but it’s often the best means of exploring ancient civilisations, like the Lycians, who were essentially maritime, geared to the sea. What finer way to visit a city like Knidos, where Praxiteles' infamous naked statue of Aphrodite once stood, than to sail straight into its old commercial harbour and drop anchor beside its ancient mooring stones. Travel is a key element in the stories I tell, and whether a tour is based on roads or the sea I always try and make a virtue of the transport, by drawing on ancient parallels – be it shipwrecks, travel writing, or the classical tourists and pilgrims who visited the same sites and even bought tacky souvenirs.

When creating the final tour itinerary, geography and logistics often carry the deciding vote, but if possible I love to start small and build. I think our Lycian cruise works that idea almost perfectly. The first few sites are in breathtaking locations, but in themselves the ruins are scant. They give everyone a chance to get their bearings, to settle into the landscape, and perhaps marvel at one broken tomb, a few inscribed stones, or the odd piece of sculpture lying on the ground. As the days go by, the sites get bigger and more impressive, one has a Byzantine church, the next has a theatre, another has a baths… so each location adds another layer of understanding, another facet of ancient architecture and city life. By the time we reach some of the greatest sites in the world – Aspendos, with one of the best preserved Roman theatres and aqueducts, Perge, a city with great boulevards and agoras lined with columns and baths swathed in marble – the group has already seen the basics and can revel in such size and magnificence.

Perhaps the other essential element in creating an archaeological tour is timing. Above all don’t cram in too much. I’d much rather give everyone a chance to sit in a theatre and savour the scene, nevermind the view, the birdsong, and the atmosphere, than cram in three sites a day on a whirlwind mission. Don’t travel in the hottest months, and even when it’s a cooler season, avoid the heat of the day, for a start the light is all the better early in the morning and later in the afternoon.

Whether it’s getting to a restaurant for lunch, making sure the drives aren’t too long, or something unique like swimming at Patara where St Nicholas was born, as the sun sinks like an orange orb into the sea, timing is paramount. If that means leaving some great sites out of a tour itinerary, that’s fine, I always think it’s a good rule of thumb to leave some places unexplored so there’s always something special to come back for.

A documentary Producer/Director and archaeologist, Peter Sommer runs a specialist travel company offering archaeological tours and cruises in Turkey (and occasionally Britain). For more information, please visit www.petersommer.com

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