Gökbel Plateau

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 Alanya, the name Gökbel brings wrestling to mind first. The Traditional Gökbel Oil Wrestling Festival, organised by the municipality, was held for the twentieth time in 2026. It lasted four days, and the head wrestlers took to the field for the final bouts on Sunday 2 August.

The date is not fixed from year to year. The sixteenth festival in 2022 took place in mid-July, on 16 and 17 July. If you are thinking of going up for the wrestling, go by the municipality's announcement for that year rather than last year's dates.

Yörük nomad culture is part of the festival too. In 2022 the municipality pitched a Yörük tent on the plateau, and visitors from home and abroad who came for the wrestling stopped by. In winter the plateau shows a very different face: in January 2024 rescue teams freed thirty-three people stuck in the snow on the plateau road.

We do not run a tour up to Gökbel. If you want to see the Taurus slopes in a single day, the jeep safari below goes to the village of Alacami at 750 metres and to Kadıpınarı Waterfall; the plateau sits twice as high.

• ~1,500 m altitude
• 20th oil wrestling: 30 Jul - 2 Aug 2026
• Road can close in winter snow