Alara Caravanserai

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.

The inn stands in Okurcalar, on the edge of Çakallar village. Turn off the Antalya-Alanya road and drive about eight kilometres inland, and it appears on the bank of the Alara stream. The building covers some two thousand square metres and is almost entirely cut stone, with rubble used only on the faces turned to the slope. The six-line inscription sits above the door on the north-east façade.

The castle was the inn's guardian. Alanya Municipality places it thirty-seven kilometres west of town and nine kilometres inland, and records that it was rebuilt in 1232 under Keykubad to protect the trade road and the inn. According to the TDV Encyclopaedia of Islam, the pavilion inside the castle held figural frescoes with no other known example in Anatolian Turkish architecture; both the pavilion and the bath are in ruins today.

The inn has been restored in recent years: the corridor around the courtyard has been roofed with an iron frame and clear panels. Not every part was so lucky; the floor of the fountain iwan, the stone benches and the fountain basin were damaged by treasure hunters.

We do not run a tour that stops at the inn. If you want to head into the Taurus in the same westerly direction, the Green Canyon jeep safari below takes you to the Oymapınar Dam, along mountain roads and onto the emerald lake by boat.

• 1231-32, Keykubad
• ~2,000 m², cut stone
• 800 m to the castle