Turkey · İzmir
Where to Stay in Bergama, İzmir
Where to stay in Bergama
Each area has its own feel; here's who each one suits.
In Bergama the question is whether to sleep in the old town below the acropolis. The streets below the acropolis keep the red basilica, the bazaar, and the mosques within a walk, and staying in the centre suits anyone here for the ruins. The old lanes wind up the hill.
Rooms sit near the foot of the acropolis. Out toward the newer town and the road, the streets run wider and plainer. A room away from the centre trades the old lanes for parking, space, and an easy road to Izmir.
The green plain opens past the edge. If you want the ruins and the bazaar, stay in the centre; if you want the road, take a room outside. Either way, the acropolis is close at hand.
About Bergama
Bergama stands below the ruins of ancient Pergamon.
What is Bergama known for?
On a steep hill above the town rise the temples, the library, and the great theatre of a Greek royal city, and a vast Roman temple of red brick looms in the valley, while an old healing sanctuary lies on the plain. The past crowns every hill here. Ruins and hills mark the town.
What are the main landmarks in Bergama?
The Acropolis of Pergamon crowns the hill above Bergama. Its ruined temples, palaces, and the steepest theatre of the ancient world cling to the rocky height, the emblem of the town, over the plain. Great ruins fill the valley too.
The red-brick Basilica, once a temple and a church, looms in the town, while the healing sanctuary of the Asklepion and the Bergama Museum keep the ancient story.
What is the history of Bergama?
Pergamon was one of the great cities of the Greek world. In the centuries after Alexander, its kings, the Attalids, built a splendid capital on the steep hill, with a marble theatre cut into the slope, temples to the gods, and a library second only to Alexandria's. The kings left it to Rome.
Pergamon passed peacefully to the Roman empire and grew richer still, adding the great red temple below and the famous healing sanctuary of Asklepios. The city faded with the ancient world. Earthquakes and time toppled its temples, and the great altar of Zeus was carried off to a museum abroad, while a Turkish town grew on the plain below the ruins.
Then diggers uncovered the past. Archaeologists laid bare the acropolis, the sanctuary, and the red basilica, and Bergama drew travellers to walk among the stones of Pergamon. The theatre still clings to the hill.
Bergama guards the ruins of Pergamon above the plain.
Where is Bergama?
Bergama lies on a plain below steep hills in western Turkey, inland from the Aegean coast. It spreads at the foot of a high rocky acropolis, where two streams run down from the hills, in the green country of the old Mysian land. The ruined acropolis rises above the town.
The plain stretches away to the sea.
What is the climate of Bergama?
Mediterranean warmth rules the year in Bergama. Hot, dry summers bake the plain and the hills, and the winters stay mild and wet near the Aegean, with the rain falling in the cooler months. Dry heat settles over the ruins in summer.
The coast keeps the air soft in winter.
How do you get to Bergama?
Bergama lies inland from the Aegean coast in western Turkey. Roads run to it from Izmir to the south and the coast road to the west, and the town sits a short way off the main highway north. Local buses serve the towns scattered across the surrounding plain.
Most arrive by road from Izmir.
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Updated August 2026