Manavgat Waterfall Tickets and Tours | GetExperince.com

The Manavgat waterfall is wide, not tall. The river drops three or four metres over a limestone shelf about forty metres across, three kilometres north of the town. Volume is the whole point of it.

Why the water is cold in August

The Manavgat rises in the karst of the Taurus and reaches the plain already cold, which no August on this coast changes.

Flow averages something like 150 cubic metres a second and runs several times that after snowmelt. You hear the falls before you see them. Spring is when they are fullest and loudest; by late summer the sheet narrows but the temperature does not budge.

What the visit actually is

This is a park with a paved terrace, not a wilderness, and it works as a stop rather than a destination.

• Tea gardens. Platforms built out over the water, charging normal prices rather than tourist ones.
• Orange juice. Pressed at the stalls from the groves that fill the plain around Manavgat.
• The river boat. The usual pairing: down the Manavgat towards the sea and back, half a day with lunch.
• Green Canyon. Upstream instead, on the reservoir behind the Oymapinar dam, flat water between rock walls.
• The bazaar. Manavgat's market runs Mondays and Thursdays and is one of the bigger ones on this coast.

Practical

• Time needed. Twenty minutes to half an hour at the falls; the rest of the day is whatever you bolt on.
• Entrance. A small fee at the gate to the park, paid in cash.
• Footing. Stone near the edge stays wet and slick, and there is not much of a barrier.
• Swimming. Not allowed at the falls themselves, though the river downstream is used for it.
• Getting there. Twenty to forty minutes from Side or Belek, about an hour from Alanya; a dolmus from Manavgat costs a fraction of any tour.
• Timing. Combined boat trips leave in the morning and are back for a late lunch.