Cleopatra Beach Tickets and Tours | GetExperience.com

Cleopatra Beach is the sand exception on a coast that mostly does pebbles. It runs roughly two kilometres west of the Alanya headland. The grain is fine and pale.

What the swimming is like

The shelf drops away fast: four or five steps out and you are swimming. That suits adults and complicates toddlers.

• Blue Flag. The municipal stretch is certified, with lifeguards, showers and marked swimming zones.
• Light. The rock stands to the east, so mornings are shaded and the sunset belongs to this side of town.
• Loungers. Beds and umbrellas are rented by the row, with free sand left between the concessions.
• On the water. Parasail boats, banana rides and jet skis work the middle of the bay through the summer.

The story about the sand

Guides will tell you the sand was shipped from Egypt as a gift from Mark Antony. Nothing in the record supports that. The name arrived with tourism, not with Rome.

Water sport by the hour is what sells here. The yacht days, the pirate boats and the dolphin show all load at the harbour on the far side of the rock.

Practical

• Season. Swimmable from May into November, and by noon in August the dry sand is too hot for bare feet.
• Crowds. Central rows fill by ten in high summer; the far western end stays thinner all day.
• Shade. There is none but what you rent, and the headland only helps early.
• Getting there. Walkable from most western hotels, with the cable car station at the eastern end of the sand.
• Damlatas. The cave of that name opens at the eastern end of the sand, two minutes off the beach.
• Money. Sunbed hire and beach food are cash business, in lira.