Nightlife in Antalya

Antalya's evenings divide fairly neatly into three areas, and knowing which one you want saves a long taxi ride. Kaleici, the walled old town, is where the small bars are: stone buildings, narrow lanes, everything within a few hundred metres of everything else. Lara, east of the centre on the cliffs, has the large clubs. Konyaalti, west along the bay, has the open-air venues on the seafront boulevard. Locals eat late, so nothing fills up before eleven.

Kaleici: drinking in the old town

The old town is the easiest place to spend an evening on foot. Sheffield Pub, on Yenikapi Sokak, is the best known of the Kaleici pubs - dark wood, high stools, Guinness on tap and football on the screens - and there is a second Irish option, Dubh Linn, a few streets away on Hesapci Sokak. Tipsy Old Town sits at the far end of Hidirlik Sokak, near the Roman-era Hidirlik Tower, and its draw is an open-air terrace looking out over the water rather than what is behind the bar.

Live music is spread thinly across several small rooms rather than concentrated in one venue. Odin Pub on Pasa Cami Sokak, Sponge Pub on Izmirli Ali Efendi Sokak and Filika Cafe Bar on Civelek Sokak all run regular acts in spaces that hold a few dozen people, and Holly Stone Performance Hall on Uzun Carsi Sokak takes the louder end of the bill, mostly rock and cover bands. If you would rather drink raki over meze than stand at a bar, Kaleici Meyhanesi on Balikpazari Sokak is the traditional version of a night out, and it runs later than the food alone would suggest.

What makes the old town work is density rather than any single bar. Everything above stands within a few hundred metres, the lanes are pedestrian, and the normal evening is three or four short stops rather than one long one. Music runs from house and chart sets in the larger rooms to live acoustic and rock in the small ones, and several places put tables out against the old walls in summer. Kaleici also runs year round, which the seafront venues do not.

Lara: the big clubs

The clubbing crowd goes east. Gaga Club, up on the cliffs at Fener, is the current headline venue, with a serious sound system, light shows and booked international DJs; it is a late venue even by local standards and rarely worth arriving at before one in the morning. Public Lara, further along Lara Caddesi, is the more mainstream option, and the big Lara hotels run their own beach parties through the summer, which are open to non-residents on some nights and not on others - worth checking on the day rather than assuming.

Konyaalti: open-air by the sea

West of the centre, Akdeniz Bulvari runs behind Konyaalti beach and carries most of the open-air venues. Pause Club is the electronic and techno room on that strip, open to the sky with the sea directly in front of it, and Roxy Beach Lounge nearby works as a beach club by day and a bar after dark. Up on the cliff near the Archaeology Museum, Kalina Bar trades on the view more than the music, with cocktails and a food menu on a terrace above the bay.

Practical notes

• Shisha lounges are a fixture in every part of the city and generally stay open later than the bars; they are also the standard alternative if you are not drinking.
• Prices climb sharply from Kaleici to the Lara clubs. A beer in an old-town pub and a cocktail at a cliff-top club are not in the same bracket.
• The clubs enforce a loose dress code; the old-town bars do not care.
• The open-air venues at Lara and Konyaalti are summer operations and most of them shut for the winter; the Kaleici bars stay open all year.
• Dolmus minibuses stop running long before the clubs close, so budget for a taxi back.

The rhythm of the night is worth planning around: dinner rarely finishes before ten, Kaleici fills around eleven, and the Lara and Konyaalti clubs are still half empty at midnight. Crews berthed in the old harbour keep the same hours, and after a day exploring the Turkey coast by gulet the climb from the quay up into Kaleici takes about five minutes, which makes the marina an unusually convenient place to start an evening.