Best Side attractions and vacation recommendations: If you’re looking for a mix of beach time and history, the resort town of Side is one of the best places to visit on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast. Side may be all about soaking up the sun on the sand but for those who fancy a slice of culture with their sunbathing, the wealth of Greco-Roman ruins right in town are major tourist attractions. By 1000 BC Side, had its first settlement but it was in the 7th or 6th centuries BC, when Greek settlers established a colony and built a harbor here, that the town began to prosper. During the Roman era, this town became an important commercial center, and it was only when the harbor began to silt up in the 7th century that the town was eventually abandoned. At the tip of Side’s peninsula are the remains of the ancient town’s two principal temples, dedicated to Athena and Apollo. Although they are in no way complete, they have a dramatic location looking out over the Mediterranean and are especially atmospheric in the evening, when the ruins are lit up. Side harbor is a great place for a sunset promenade, with plenty of cafés dotting the shoreline near the ruins.
While Side is, particularly, popular for its serene bays, there are, definitely, more on the table! Join our Buggy safari and rafting tour, during your holidays in Side, and be part of two adrenaline-boosting activities. Exceptional landscapes, big doses of enthusiasm, laughter, and an opportunity to get away from the crowds, are some of the things you can expect from this tour. This experience begins in the morning, with a pick-up service from your hotel in Side. Our guide will explain to you the details of the schedule, and let you know some interesting information about Köprüçay river and the surrounding area. To join this combo experience you need no prior experience in rafting and buggy driving. In what regards the later, you need no driving licence. Therefore, this excursion is ideal for all, children, and adults.
Lonely Travel is an expert licensed travel agency in Alanya & Side. We organize travel services since 1997. We let our customers to save their time and money also providing them a high quality service. In our Travel Agency employees highly trained specialists that are licensed by the Ministry of Tourism of Turkey. We work 7 days a week to provide the best service to our guests. We organize more than 50 tours around Alanya and Side, each and every single excursion of ours is fully insured and maintained by our professional tour guides. See more information on Side Green Canyon Boat Tour.
The legendary Cleopatra Beach is one of the most beautiful beaches in Turkey, clearly worth visiting during your trip to Antalya. With its crystal-clear water and numerous water sport activities, it attracts about 2 million tourists a year and gets more and more popular every year. The Alanya Archeology Museum is located in the very center of Alanya, on Ismet Hilmi Balcı Street behind Alanya Castle and Damlataş Cave. Alanya is a city with a very rich historical heritage in every aspect. However, you don’t have a lot of chances to visit a cultural places in Alanya. Although the best cultural museum in the region is the Antalya Museum, followed by the Side Archaeology Museum, the Alanya Archaeology Museum is the best witness of the area’s heritage. It’s located in the heart of the city. The Archaeology Museum in Alanya exhibits bronze, marble, terra-cotta, and glass artifacts, mosaics and coin collections belonging to the Archaic and Classical periods, and also Turkish Islamic works of art from the Seljuk and Ottoman Periods.
Alanya’s port for tourist cruises and diving excursions is defended to the south by Kızılkule, and is as good a place as any to potter around and see where your curiosity takes you. Along the water there’s a promenade, hemmed by gardens with palms, lawns and topiaries. There are lots of spaces to just park up and soak up the views out to sea, down to the castle or up to the Taurus Mountains, a constant, imposing presence all along the coast. You’ll never be far from a cafe for a hit of Turkish coffee, and for the best views you can walk along the harbour’s south arm to ponder Alanya and its mountainous hinterland. You may want to spend a whole day descending into the clear waters off Alanya. This experience is open to divers of all experience levels, and includes hotel pick-up and boat trips from the harbour to two dive sites, with a cooked lunch aboard the yacht on the way to the second site.
Starting at the western foot of that promontory is Alanya’s main beach, a long gentle arc of coarse sand bathed by low-to-moderate surf. Kleopatra Beach is wide, tapering only a little the further north you go, and gives you unbroken views of the castle and the brooding mass of the Taurus Mountains. There are beach clubs with sun loungers at intervals along the beach, and between the sand and Atatürk Boulevard is a wide promenade, blessed with those same panoramas, under swaying palms and buffered from the street by a strip of greenery with playgrounds and flowerbeds. On the east side of the beach is the lower station for a cable car that opened in summer 2017, whisking you up to the castle promontory. The Alanya Teleferik climbs 250 metres on a 900-metre line, and one of its 14 gondolas will depart every 19 seconds. On board you’ll be treated to astonishing 360° views, out over the Gulf of Antalya, across the resort and beyond to the Taurus Mountains.
Pamukkale is 3 hours drive from Kusadasi town. Right by the natural wonders the ancient city of Hierapoolis was founded. Today a unesco heritage site. Its natural beauty and historical background attracts many travellers. Pamukkale means cotton castle. There are two reasons why the area is name as cotton castle. One reason the white cliffs look like a castle made of white cotton, the other reason is that the area houses lots of cotton processing factories. Natural thermal springs which has high density of chalk inside formed glacier looking terraces on the areas where flowed for thousands of years. It is a unique site. Ancient Hierapolis was founded by Pergamum Kingdom. Due to the existence of thermal waters which healed people. Thousands of patients came to the area to get cured. The ones who were not able to be cured died and buried in the area. Today the site has the largest ancient necropolis. The number of thumbs like sarcaphaguses excavated is over 1600. The total number is expected to be over 3000. St. Philip the apostle lived in the city and martyred during the persecution time to the christians. This is a must see site for travellers.
Alanya is a worldwide center of attention with a large number of beach resorts. The İncekum region is sought by those who do not like the crowd of Alanya city center and want to have a relaxing holiday. Here, facilities are lined up along the beach like a set. Avsallar has a unique 10 km long sandy beach where you can find various forms of accommodation, from all inclusive hotels to boutique hotels and homestays. Konaklı and Türkler (Fuğla) are some of the places close to entertainment and are the liveliest spots in Alanya.
The street that starts from the Grand Theater and extends to the harbor is 528 meters long and 11 meters wide. It is described as one of the most spacious roads in the ancient world. Columns adorned both sides of the street, and there were many galleries and shops on both sides. There was also a developed sewage system under this spacious road. Since the end of the street leads to the harbor, it was called “Harbor Street”. Kings, emperors, ambassadors, merchants who came to Ephesus by sea were welcomed on this street with an official ceremony. It is also known as “Arkadiane Street” since it was destroyed in the earthquake in the 4th century and repaired by Emperor Arkadius between 395-408. After the adoption of Christianity, the statue of the four apostles of Christ was placed on the street, and these sculptures, unfortunately, do not exist today. Read additional details on https://www.sideexcursion.com/.
Alanya is best known for its beaches. The sandy strips in town itself, and strung along the surrounding coast, are all about laid-back resort vacations and are usually packed out by a clientele of northern Europeans from June through August. There’s more to Alanya than its shore though. The high cliff of the peninsula is home to an ancient castle district, all surrounded by well-preserved, sturdy stone walls. Down at the harbor, more historical remnants survive, looming over a bay where yachts sit ready to whisk you out onto the sea.
Oluk Bridge, Köprülü Canyon: Köprülü Canyon National Park is about 120 kilometers to the north of Alanya. It’s primarily known as one of the best places to visit in the region for rafting trips, which take place on the icy-blue river that winds through the canyon, but for more things to do, the area is also home to Roman ruins and plenty of hiking opportunities. Selge is the main Roman archaeological site in the area. The remnants of this once thriving city of 20,000 sit amid the lonely village of Altınkaya, 11 kilometers northwest of the canyon itself. The large Roman Theater, cut into the hillside and looming over the modern village houses, is well worth a visit here, despite the theater being partially destroyed. In the canyon itself, several tour companies run rafting trips along the Köprü River. The trips traverse the most scenic section of the river, heading under the Roman-built Oluk Bridge, which dates back to the 2nd century. The canyon is 14 kilometers long, with its walls soaring up to 400 meters high in places.