Knowing where to go in Alanya is the easy part; getting there is the question. We wrote a short story for each place and put the tour that visits it right underneath.
MADE FOR YOU
Eight short questions, two minutes. At the end you get a list of places picked for you. Free, no sign-up.
The octagonal tower over the harbour went up in 1226, when Sultan Alâeddin Keykubad wanted his shipyard protected. The Aleppo architect Ebu Ali stacked five floors, and the red brick of the upper storeys deepens as the sun drops, which is where the name comes from. Inside it is now the Ethnography Museum. From the top terrace the harbour, the shipyard and the whole bay sit in one frame.
The road up the peninsula leaves you in a ten-hectare open-air museum. The walls run for six and a half kilometres with close to a hundred and forty bastions along them. Inside stand nearly four hundred cisterns, the cut-stone Bedesten and the Süleymaniye Mosque. The inner castle sits two hundred and fifty metres above the sea, Cleopatra Beach on one side and the eastern shore on the other.
A year after Kızılkule, in 1227, the same sultan had a five-bayed shipyard built on the shore. It is fifty-seven metres long and forty deep, its bays divided by walls with pointed arches. Türkiye's official culture portal describes it as the only Seljuk shipyard to have survived intact. Passing by on a boat, the vaults stay dark inside and the sea runs up into the mouths of the bays.
Since 2017 this line has been the easiest way up to the castle. You board at the lower station in Damlataş and ride the nine-hundred-metre line up to Kale station; as the cabin rises, Cleopatra Beach opens up below you. The eight-person cabins arrive every twenty seconds, so the queue usually moves fast. Tickets are return tickets valid all day, and you can walk down instead if you prefer.
Kızılkule watched the sea; Ehmedek watched the land. A year later the same sultan added this section on the northern side of the castle: two separate parts of three towers each, six in all. It is the least crowded corner of the castle, and from between the stone walls you get the town and the mountain line together. Most people touring the castle do not walk this far, so it stays quiet.
It opened by accident in 1948, while stone was being quarried for the harbour, and became the first cave in Türkiye opened to tourism. Inside it stays at twenty-two degrees all year with ninety-five per cent humidity. That air is considered good for asthma, and a twenty-one-day course is run under medical supervision. When it is thirty-four degrees outside, standing under the stalactites for a few minutes is the cheapest cooling in town.
Forty-four kilometres inland from Alanya, a narrow cleft runs into the mountains. The rock walls on either side rise close to four hundred metres, and at the bottom walkways of steel and wood follow the water inwards. About three hundred metres from the entrance a waterfall comes into view. Look up and the sky is reduced to a thin strip. In 2022 a 3,358-metre ecotourism trail was opened along the stream as well.
Eleven kilometres from the centre and two hundred and thirty-two metres above the sea. It has four galleries and a total length of three hundred and sixty metres, with the ceiling reaching fifteen metres in places. At the far end lies an underground lake of about two hundred square metres, seventeen metres below the entrance. Türkiye's culture portal puts its age at around a million years.
It rises in the Taurus mountains, runs down the Dim valley and empties into the Mediterranean. At its coldest the water is around four degrees, and the valley air sits ten to fifteen degrees below the town. In midsummer, when Alanya is heavy with heat, driving up here feels like changing climate. Platforms are built out over the water along the bank, and you sit with your feet hanging in.
On the road to Sapadere Canyon, a small cave where people heading for the canyon stop off. Inside, a lit path threads between stalactites and stalagmites. The air is ten to twelve degrees cooler than outside, which you notice with your first step in midsummer. Anyone on the Sapadere tour can take in both on the same day.
A cave on the south-west slope of the peninsula, its mouth about thirty-four metres above the sea. The entrance is only wide enough for one person, yet further in the cave reaches right through to the other side of the peninsula. It is easiest to see from the water: as boat trips pass the rocks, the mouth shows high up in the cliff.
It begins on the west side of the peninsula, right in front of Damlataş Cave. It held a Blue Flag without a break from 2004 to 2025, twenty-two years running. The water is clear enough to see the bottom and the fish with a snorkel. The name comes from the story that Cleopatra and Antony swam here. Boat trips also stop for a swim fifty metres offshore.
The name describes the sand: a fine-grained cove west of Alanya where the pines come down almost to the water. The sea stays shallow a long way out, which is why families with small children pick it. The pines give the shade, so renting an umbrella is optional. Boat trips leaving from Avsallar and Türkler pass along this stretch of shore.
A beach on the eastern side of town, usually named together with Keykubat. The peninsula the castle sits on splits Alanya's shoreline in two: Cleopatra to the west, Keykubat and Portakal to the east. Portakal has no Blue Flag of its own; the flag flies over the two public beaches of its neighbour Keykubat. If you want water that is inspected, that is the nearest choice.
The small stretch of shore right beside the historic shipyard, within walking distance of Kızılkule. It is stone and pebble here rather than fine sand; even the landward ends of the shipyard's bays are partly pebble and partly rock. Swimming at the foot of eight-hundred-year-old vaults is a different day out from a crowded beach. Some of our boat trips make their first swim stop right on this water.
A Roman-period city on a slope facing the sea, east of Alanya. A colonnaded street, cisterns and fragments of mosaic lie scattered among the trees, with no ticket booth, no crowd and no loudspeaker. Wandering on your own, you can sit on a stone and just look at the sea. The people who come here are usually on their second visit to Alanya.
The streets of the ancient city are still in use: you walk between temple columns and sit down at a cafe. The columns of the Temple of Apollo stand right at the water, and in the late afternoon the sun sets directly behind them. It is a drive from Alanya. We do not currently run a tour dedicated to Side, so the culture category is the place to look.
A Roman city set on a steep headland towards Gazipaşa. Bath ruins, church foundations and rocks dropping to the shoreline sit together on the same site. The mosaic floor uncovered in excavations is known as one of the largest in the region. It is far from Alanya and lightly visited, which suits anyone looking for a day away from the crowd.
One of the first stations on the Seljuk caravan road that climbed from Alanya to Konya: merchants spent the night in this stone inn on the bank of the Alara stream. The inscription over the door dates it to 1231-32 and to Sultan Alâeddin Keykubad. Eight hundred metres away, on top of the crag, stands Alara Castle, reached through a stepped passage cut into the rock.
On Mondays the Oba neighbourhood market sets up: fruit and vegetable stalls side by side with sellers of clothes and souvenirs. It is an easy way to see everyday Alanya outside the hotel. At the fruit stalls you also know what to look for: bananas, avocados and carob, all three registered with a geographical indication under the name Alanya.
The marine park in Türkler opened in the summer of 2008. The show starts every day at 10:30 in the morning and runs for about fifty minutes, with the seals taking over after the dolphins. After the show, those who have booked move on to swim with the dolphins. It is a morning that wraps up before the midday heat sets in, easy to plan around with children.
For about seven kilometres below Dim Dam, the riverbank turns into an open-air dining room all summer: some twenty-five restaurants, picnic and camping areas, and shaded gazebos. At its coldest the water drops to four degrees, and jumping towers and water slides wait for the brave. Locals come at the weekend too, so an early hour is more comfortable.
A high plateau some fifteen hundred metres above the coast. Traditional oil wrestling is held here in midsummer; the twentieth festival, in 2026, ran from 30 July to 2 August. Alongside the wrestling, the festival makes room for Yörük nomad culture. In winter the same road can be shut by snow, so Gökbel is two different places depending on the season.
In the inland neighbourhood of Mahmutseydi stands a mosque clad in stone outside and built of wood throughout inside. The building rests on twenty wooden columns, and the door leaves, the minbar and the preaching chair are wooden too. The door carries the date 1252, yet its true age is debated: accounts place it in the thirteenth or fourteenth century. The plain exterior keeps its surprise for the moment you step inside.
How many days do you have, who is travelling, what are you curious about? Message us and we will map out a route. No prepayment; you pay on the day of the tour.