Romantic in Alanya

The romantic programme in Alanya is almost entirely an evening affair, because by day the town works for the beach rather than for atmosphere. The main format is a combined outing that opens with a boat ride along the rocky headland, continues with the cable car up to the fortress walls and ends with dinner on board facing the floodlit Red Tower. The bay smooths out towards evening, the crowds on the promenade have thinned, and the whole route takes about five hours.

The second line is the hammam for two. A Turkish bath here is not a spa salon but a sequence of halls: warming on the marble slab in the centre, a scrub with a coarse mitt, a foam massage and tea in the resting room. Programmes with aloe vera add a cooling treatment after the scrub, which is practical for sun-exposed skin. Many hammams take couples in a shared hall, so guests arrive in swimwear; the session runs an hour and a half to two hours.

Worth allowing for. Evening departures are booked ahead, since sunset slots are the scarcest, particularly in July and August. Take something with long sleeves on the boat: after sundown the water turns cool even at the height of the season. Hotel transfer is usually included, but confirm the return time — some programmes finish around midnight, and Mahmutlar and Konaklı are not five minutes away.