Tours in Alanya

Alanya is built around a rock. A limestone headland pushes out into the Mediterranean, and on top of it sits a Seljuk castle with six and a half kilometres of wall, reached by road, on foot up the switchbacks, or by the cable car that lifts from the beach in a few minutes. At the foot of the rock stands the Kizil Kule, the octagonal Red Tower finished in 1226 to guard the harbour, and beside it the covered shipyard the Seljuks cut into the shoreline. The town spreads either side: Cleopatra Beach on the west, named for the visit that probably never happened, the long municipal strip east, and the Damlatas cave in between, whose humid air was once prescribed for asthma. Inland, the Dim river runs cold out of the Taurus with restaurants built on platforms over the water, and the Sapadere canyon cuts back into the mountains half an hour away.

Alanya sells the sea and the evening. Boat days leave the harbour all summer — pirate-themed for families, catamarans with lunch for adults, and quieter bay-hopping trips that stop for swimming under the castle. The dolphin show and the water parks handle the children; the Land of Legends theme park an hour west runs transfers from here. On land it is the castle circuit with the cable car, jeep and quad safaris into the Taurus, and paragliding off the ridge. Evenings are the town's other trade: a Turkish bath done properly with scrub and foam, dinner on the Dim, and a bar strip that runs late. Prices sit low even by Turkish coast standards, with the median day out costing about what a restaurant meal does elsewhere on the Mediterranean.

Practical. The season runs April to November, with July and August around 35C and sea temperatures near 28C; May, June, September and October are the comfortable months and the sea is still swimmable into November. Antalya airport is two hours west by road, which is worth knowing before booking a tour with hotel pickup at seven in the morning. The castle has no shade and the climb is steep — take the cable car up and walk down. Hammams in hotels are not the same thing as the town ones. Tipping is around ten per cent, cash in lira goes further in the market than cards, and the first price on the bazaar street is an opening bid rather than a price.