About Antalya

Antalya is the largest city on Turkey's Mediterranean coast and the country's main gateway for visitors arriving by air: a metropolitan population of around 2.7 million, some 16.5 million foreign arrivals a year, and a site at the head of a gulf with the Taurus mountains rising straight up behind it. The old walled quarter, Kaleici, wraps around a Roman harbour that still works as a marina, and the modern city runs out along the shore in both directions from it.

The climate is hot-summer Mediterranean: very hot and dry in July and August, mild and wet in winter, with close to 3,000 hours of sun a year. The same pattern sets the sailing season, which on this coast runs from late spring into October. That window is the best time to charter a gulet in Turkey, and it is also when the city itself is at its most comfortable, either side of the midsummer heat.

The City's History

Attalus II of Pergamon founded the city around 150 BC and named it Attaleia after himself, apparently building on a settlement that was already there rather than on empty ground. When Attalus III died in 133 BC he left the Attalid kingdom to Rome in his will, and Attaleia passed to Rome with it.

Its best-known Roman monument came almost three centuries later, not two decades. Hadrian visited the city in AD 130, and the three-arched marble gate on the eastern side of Kaleici was raised for that visit. It is still the main way into the old quarter on foot. The Hidirlik Tower at the seaward corner of the old town is Roman as well, usually dated to the second century AD and read variously as a tomb or a lighthouse.

What came afterwards is written into the same few streets. Kesik Minare, the truncated minaret, began as a Byzantine church and was later converted to a mosque. The Yivli Minare, the fluted brick minaret with turquoise tiling that serves as the city's emblem, is Seljuk work, as is the Imaret madrasa beside it. The clock tower at Kalekapisi is a bastion of the old city wall that was given its clock in the Ottoman period.

Kaleici and the Old Harbour

Kaleici is the town inside the walls: narrow lanes, restored Ottoman timber houses now running as small hotels and restaurants, and the eighteenth-century Tekeli Mehmet Pasa Mosque. The harbour below it was the city's commercial port for most of its history, cut into the cliff at the foot of the old town, and it now takes tour boats and yachts instead of cargo.

Beaches and Bays

Two beaches carry most of the city's swimming. Konyaalti stretches west of the centre under the mountains and is pebble; Lara, to the east, is sand. Beyond and between them the shoreline breaks up into smaller coves, Maden and Firnaz among them, some reached by road and others only from the water. Watersports operators work off all of them, and the seafront parks along Konyaalti give the beach its cafes and shade.

Beyond the City

The Olympos cable car climbs Tahtali, the 2,365-metre peak behind Kemer, in a single span of about 4.3 kilometres from a base station at 726 metres near Tekirova. It opened in 2007 and runs two cabins of 80 people, and it is regularly listed among the longest lifts in Europe. The view from the top covers the length of the gulf.

The Land of Legends is a theme park and water park at Kadriye in the Belek area of Serik district, about 35 kilometres east of the city centre rather than in Antalya itself. The water park has more than forty slides. Its shopping street can be walked for nothing; the ticket covers the parks.

Eating and Shopping

Antalya has its own dishes rather than a generic Turkish menu. Piyaz here is made with tahini, which is not how it is done elsewhere in the country, and hibes, a tahini and cumin paste, is a local staple. Fish comes in off the gulf daily, and the citrus and vegetables come from the plain behind the city.

The old bazaar in Kaleici sells spices, sweets, handicrafts and souvenirs, and remains the place to buy anything ground or dried. Lara has the newer restaurants and bars, upmarket and busy in the evening. The Mall of Antalya covers the international brands.