In Bergama, take the cable car to the Acropolis, and walk to the Asclepieion.

Bergama lies a hundred kilometres north of İzmir, a UNESCO World Heritage site that has always sat in the shadow of Ephesus. Ephesus gives you the streets of a Roman city; Bergama gives you the hilltop capital of a Hellenistic kingdom, the most famous healing centre of antiquity and a real Anatolian town living in between. Give it a full day; you will not regret it.

Buses to Bergama leave İzmir's main bus station frequently and take two hours. By car, ninety minutes on the İzmir–Çanakkale road. The Bergama bus station is outside town; a municipal bus or taxi reaches the centre in ten minutes.

In the morning take the cable car from the town centre up to the Acropolis; it takes five minutes and is the best decision of the day, the alternative being a steep climb. At the top the re-erected columns of the Temple of Trajan, the world's steepest ancient theatre cut into the slope and the foundations of the Altar of Zeus are waiting. The altar itself went to Berlin in the 19th century; only its footprint is here, but the view over the plain and the reservoir makes you forget the loss. Allow two hours. Take the cable car down again or walk the path to the Red Basilica.

The huge red-brick Roman temple at the foot of the hill may be under restoration, but it is impressive even from outside; look at the vaults carrying it over the Bergama stream. Lunch in the old streets and the Arasta bazaar next door; Bergama meatballs and the region's fresh cheese are the classics. The Bergama Museum is also central; forty-five minutes for the model of the Altar of Zeus and the carpets in the ethnography section.

In the afternoon move on to the Asklepion, two kilometres west of the centre, a flat walk or a taxi. The healing centre where the physician Galen practised takes an hour, with its colonnaded sacred way, sacred spring, the underground tunnel where patients were treated through dreams and a small theatre. No shade in summer; spend the midday heat in town and come after 4 p.m.

The last buses from Bergama to İzmir leave in the evening; check the times at the bus station in the morning. If you want to stay the night, there are guesthouses converted from old houses, and a Bergama evening is a calm, genuine small-town evening; nobody tries to sell you anything.

The Müzekart is valid at all three sites, the cable car is extra. March–May and October are the best months; in summer the wind cools the Acropolis but the Asklepion is stifling. Bergama carpets and kilims are genuinely local; in the bazaar you can watch the weaver at the loom, and haggling is allowed.