Pirates Cave

Korsanlar Magarasi, the Pirates Cave, opens at sea level in the cliffs below Alanya Castle, on the rocky peninsula that divides the town's two beaches. The mouth is about 10 metres wide and 6 metres high, big enough for a small boat to nose into but nothing larger, and there is no way down to it from the land. Everyone who sees it sees it from the water.

Alanya Was Genuinely a Pirate Base

The pirate association here is not decoration. Through the 2nd and 1st centuries BC the Cilician pirates operated along this coast on a scale that amounted to a maritime power, running fleets, taking ships and raiding towns. Alanya, then called Korakesion or Coracesium, was one of their strongholds: a defensible rock with deep water on both sides, a clear view of the shipping lanes and the Taurus Mountains at its back.

What Rome eventually could not tolerate was how far the raiding reached. Plutarch records that the pirates sacked Ostia, the port of Rome itself, captured two praetors along with their escorts and their insignia of office, and carried off the daughter of Antonius, a man who had celebrated a triumph. The young Julius Caesar was captured and ransomed by pirates on the same coast in the mid-70s BC.

The response came in 67 BC, when the lex Gabinia handed Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, better known as Pompey, sweeping command over the Mediterranean and its coasts. His campaign swept the sea from west to east in a matter of months and ended in a battle at Coracesium, below the rock where Alanya Castle now stands. The pirate fleet surrendered rather than fight it out, and roughly three thousand men gave themselves up. That single engagement effectively closed the era.

Inside the Cave

The cave's other name in Turkish is Kizlaryarigi. Local accounts hold that corsairs used it as a store for plunder and kept kidnapped girls in it, which is where the second name comes from, and a further tradition puts a concealed passage running from the back of the cave up into the fortress above. The passage has never been found, and it should be read as legend rather than as anything on record; the plunder-store account is the more plausible of the two, since the cave is dry, hidden from the shore and directly under a defended position.

What you get in practice is a near-rectangular opening, very clear water over rock, and light bouncing off the surface onto the cave walls. It is a good place to swim from a tender and a reasonable one to snorkel, though it is a sea cave rather than a reef and the interest is the rock rather than the fish.

The Two Other Caves on the Peninsula

Asiklar Magarasi, the Lovers' Cave, lies on the southwestern side of the peninsula. It is genuinely small, wide enough for one person at a time, but it runs deep enough to pass right through to the other side of the headland and has an entrance at either end. Boats can only get you to the rocks below it; the last part is a scramble.

Fosforlu Magara, the Phosphorus Cave, is named for the colours thrown off by phosphorus-bearing rock on the sea floor, which show up through the water as the boat comes in. It is a daytime sight, not a nocturnal one, and it is included on the standard circuit that leaves from the marina.

All three caves open at sea level, none can be reached on foot, and the circuit of the castle peninsula is a popular stop for gulet charter guests exploring Turkey for exactly that reason: from a boat you get the whole rock, the fortifications above and the three cave mouths in one pass.

The Cleopatra Story, Straightened Out

Alanya's other standing legend attaches the town to Cleopatra. Two things are worth separating. Mark Antony was a triumvir, never a Roman emperor, and he did transfer territory on the Cilician coast to Cleopatra, principally because its forests supplied timber for shipbuilding, so an Egyptian claim on this stretch of coast is real history. The honeymoon at Alanya and the gift of the town as a wedding present are not; those belong to local tradition. The name survives on the beach west of the castle rock, Kleopatra Plaji, rather than on any cave.

Practical Notes

Tour boats run the peninsula circuit from Alanya marina through the season, and private tenders can do the same. The sea off this coast is at its warmest in July and August, around 28C to 29C, and stays comfortable for swimming from June into late October. Sea conditions matter more than the calendar here: the cave mouths face open water, and with any swell running the boats will not go close in.