Damlataş Cave

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.

The name comes from what you hear inside: water drips steadily from the stalactites, and over time those drops have shaped the stone. The entrance gallery is around fifty metres long and fifteen metres high, covered in dripstone from the walls to the ceiling.

Measurements by Alanya Municipality explain why the air is thought to heal. The pressure inside is 760 millimetres; the air is seventy-one per cent nitrogen, twenty and a half per cent oxygen and a quarter of one per cent carbon dioxide. Add a temperature that never changes and heavy humidity, and you get a climate that brings asthma patients here for courses of treatment under a doctor's supervision.

The cave sits at the head of Cleopatra Beach, on the same corner as the lower cable car station and the Alanya Museum. Stepping off the sand to cool down for a few minutes, then riding the cable car up to the castle, all fits into one short walk.

Entry is ticketed and is not included in any of our tours. On the city tour you have free time at the castle; if you come down early and want to see the cave, you buy a ticket at the door.

• Discovered 1948
• 22°C year-round, 95% humidity
• 21-day asthma course