Turkey · Turquoise Coast
Antalya
A Roman harbour town under snow-capped mountains, with a beach at either end and the best-preserved theatre in the Mediterranean an hour up the road.
Antalya is the capital of the Turkish Mediterranean: a walled old town of Ottoman timber houses and Roman gateways wrapped around a horseshoe harbour, with the Beydaglari mountains rising straight out of the sea behind it and waterfalls dropping off the cliffs into the bay. Long beaches run east and west of the centre, and the Roman cities of Pamphylia sit within an easy drive, Aspendos among them with the best-preserved theatre in the Mediterranean. It works as a beach week, an archaeology trip, or both at once.
Suggested stay
3–5 days
Language
Turkish
Currency
TRY
Timezone
UTC+3
Why you'll love Antalya
Kaleici an old town you can still get lost in, Ottoman timber houses and Roman walls stepping down to a harbour cut into the cliff
Ruins on the doorstep a ring of Roman and Hellenistic cities within a morning's drive, from a theatre still used for concerts to a mountaintop city the coaches cannot reach
Two coasts pebbles under the mountains at Konyaalti, sand and big resorts at Lara, and cliffs with waterfalls falling straight into the sea between them
The mountains the Beydaglari hold snow behind the beach into spring, close enough that people ski in the morning and swim in the afternoon
Best time to visit
Mar-Jun, Sep-Oct
Warm spring · 19-32° days
36.887° N, 30.703° E
UTC+3 · Europe/Istanbul
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Weather & when to go to Antalya
Month by month: typical highs and lows, rainfall and rain days.
✓ Best Mar-Jun, Sep-Oct
Conditions Jan-Feb Mild & wet · Mar Warm spring · Apr Pleasant · May Warm, sea warms · Jun Hot, beach · Jul-Aug Scorching · Sep Hot, sea warm · Oct Warm autumn · Nov-Dec Mild & wet
Watch for Dec monsoon flooding risk
Cards tinted by verified verdict · big number = typical daily high, small = low · hover for conditions
When to avoid Antalya
No bad season here, but midsummer is the trade-off: July and August run hot and humid, the resort strips fill up, and an unshaded hilltop ruin in the middle of the afternoon is punishing rather than pleasant. Winter is mild and green, and it is also the wet season, when several days of heavy rain can arrive at once.
Top things to do in Antalya
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Kaleici - the walled old town above the harbour
history culture arts 👍 PopularOttoman timber houses, fragments of Roman and Seljuk wall and lanes too narrow for cars, all folded around a horseshoe harbour where wooden gulets tie up. Much of it is hotels and bars now, and it is still the best hour's wandering in the city.
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Hadrian's Gate - the emperor's triple arch
history 👍 PopularThree white marble arches raised in AD 130 for Hadrian's visit, later swallowed by the city wall, which is why they survived so well. Walk through on the old paving, where the ruts cut by cart wheels are still there underfoot.
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Antalya Museum - the marble gods of Perge
history culture arts ⭐ Highly recommendedOne of Turkey's great archaeological museums, built around the statuary and sarcophagi lifted from Perge: the Hall of Gods, a room of dancers and emperors, and the contested Weary Herakles. An hour or two here makes every ruin afterwards legible.
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Duden Waterfalls - a river that falls into the sea
nature wildlife scenic 👍 PopularThe lower falls drop off the cliff at Lara straight into the Mediterranean, seen best from a boat or the clifftop park. The upper falls, inland, run through a shaded park where the path ducks behind the curtain of water into the cave.
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Konyaalti Beach - pebbles under the Beydaglari
scenicA long grey-pebble beach west of the centre with the mountains standing straight up at the far end, backed by a promenade of cafes and beach clubs. Clear water and a steep shelf: better for swimming than for lying about.
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Lara Beach - sand and the big resorts
scenicEast of the city, Lara is where the sand is, and with it the all-inclusive strip and its replica-landmark hotels. Better for families and long lazy days than for anyone who wants the old town on foot.
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Yivli Minare - the fluted Seljuk minaret
historyThe brick minaret with its eight ribbed flutes has been Antalya's emblem since the thirteenth century, standing over the old town beside a converted Byzantine church, a cluster of tombs and a dervish lodge.
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Hidirlik Tower and Karaalioglu Park - sunset over the gulf
scenic historyA round Roman tower, probably a tomb, marks the corner where the old town meets the cliff edge, and the park beyond it is where the city walks at dusk. The whole bay and the mountains opposite turn pink.
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Tunektepe cable car - the gulf from above
scenicA gondola climbs the ridge at the western end of Konyaalti to a terrace with the entire arc of the bay laid out below and the mountains behind it. Go late in the day and stay for the light.
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Geyikbayiri - winter sport climbing in the hills
climbing adventureHalf an hour inland, the limestone at Geyikbayiri is one of Europe's big cool-season crags: thousands of bolted routes across conglomerate walls and tufa caves, with climber camps in the valley. Baking in high summer, superb from autumn to spring.
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Kesik Minare - temple, church, mosque, church, mosque
historyOne ruined shell in the old town has been a Roman temple, a Byzantine basilica, a mosque, a church again and a mosque once more, burned out in the nineteenth century and left with its truncated minaret.
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Antalya's own table - piyaz, hibes and tandir
foodThe local piyaz is a white bean salad bound with tahini, not the version served elsewhere in Turkey, and hibes is its cumin-heavy tahini dip. Add slow-cooked mountain tandir lamb, a sprawling serpme borek breakfast and citrus off the plain.
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Aspendos - the best-preserved Roman theatre anywhere
history ⭐ Highly recommendedForty-odd kilometres east, a second-century theatre stands complete, stage wall, seating and acoustics intact, and is still used for performances. The aqueduct and the upper city on the hill behind draw a fraction of the visitors.
Best areas to stay in Antalya
$ Budget $$ Mid-range $$$ Premium
Kaleici
First-time visitors $$Ottoman lanes above a horseshoe harbour
Explore hotels in Kaleici →
Konyaalti
Beach and city $$Long pebble beach under the mountains
Explore hotels in Konyaalti →
Lara
Resort holidays $$$Sandy strip of all-inclusive resorts
Explore hotels in Lara →
Muratpasa city centre
Local and central $Everyday downtown of shops and trams
Explore hotels in Muratpasa city centre →
Live nightly prices from Booking.com, Agoda and others, centred on Antalya
Getting to & around Antalya
Getting there
Fly into Antalya (AYT), 13 km northeast, then tram, shuttle or taxi into town
Flight
Antalya Airport (AYT)
Antalya Airport sits about 13 km northeast of the centre, with two international terminals and a domestic one alongside. The Antray light rail calls at the terminals and runs to Ismetpasa, the stop for Kaleici, in roughly forty minutes; shuttle buses and taxis take twenty to thirty depending on traffic, and most resorts along the Lara, Belek and Kemer strips run their own transfer coaches.
Coach
Antalya Otogar
Turkey's rail network does not reach Antalya, so intercity coaches do the work. Overnight runs from Istanbul, Izmir, Ankara and Cappadocia arrive at the otogar north of the centre, which the tram connects to town.
Drive
The D400 coast road comes in from Kas and Fethiye in the west and from Side and Alanya in the east, a slow and spectacular drive squeezed between the Taurus mountains and the sea.
Getting around
Antray light rail
Modern tram lines run from the airport across the city to the coach station and the eastern suburbs, handy for the museum, the centre and arrivals.
TBC
Nostalgic tram
A single old tramcar rattles along the clifftop from the Antalya Museum past Kalekapisi to Zerdalilik: slow, cheap and the easiest hop between museum and old town.
TBC
Buses and dolmus minibuses
Buses cover the beaches, Lara and the outer districts, while shared dolmus minibuses fill the gaps and run along the coast to Kemer and Side.
TBC
Walking
Kaleici is car-free in practice and the clifftop parks link the old town to Konyaalti, so most of the centre is comfortably done on foot.
Free
Taxis and ride-hailing
Yellow taxis are everywhere and metered, and app hailing works across the city. Insist on the meter rather than agreeing a figure through the window.
TBC
Day trips from Antalya
Aspendos and Perge
Full dayRoman cities
Perge gives you the shape of a Roman city entire, colonnaded street, baths, stadium and a water channel running down the middle. Aspendos, further east, has the theatre that survived, stage wall and all. Tours usually bolt on the Manavgat waterfall.
Getting there
car | tour | bus
About 45 min to 1 hr east by car, tour or bus
Termessos
Half dayMountaintop ruins
A Pisidian city on a saddle above a thousand metres, which Alexander looked at and left alone. Pines grow through the theatre, tombs lie tipped over at the lip of a gorge, and the climb from the car park thins the crowds to almost nobody.
Getting there
car | tour | walk
About 45 min northwest by car or tour, then a steep walk up
Olympos, Cirali and the Chimaera
Full dayRuins and eternal flames
Lycian ruins scattered through the trees behind a pebble beach where loggerhead turtles nest, and on the slope above them Yanartas, where gas seeping out of the rock has burned continuously since antiquity. Go up after dark for the flames.
Getting there
car | tour | bus
About 1.5 hr southwest by car, tour or coast bus
Koprulu Canyon
Full dayRafting gorge
Turkey's rafting river runs cold and green through a pine gorge still crossed by a Roman bridge. The water is gentle enough for families most of the year, and the ruined mountain city of Selge sits up the road beyond the canyon.
Getting there
car | tour
About 1.5 to 2 hr northeast by car or organised tour
Side
Full daySeaside ruins
An ancient harbour town with a modern resort built through it: the Temple of Apollo stands on the point with its columns against the sea, and the theatre, agora and city gate sit among the shops. Crowded, and still worth the trip.
Getting there
car | bus | tour
About 1 to 1.5 hr east by car, bus or tour
A little history of Antalya
Antalya was founded in the second century BC by Attalos II of Pergamon, who wanted a harbour for his fleet and named the place Attaleia after himself. It passed to Rome with the rest of the Pergamene kingdom, prospered as a port of Pamphylia among older and grander neighbours, and raised a triple marble gate when Hadrian came to visit in AD 130. Byzantine walls kept it going for another eight centuries.
The Seljuks took the harbour in 1207, giving their inland sultanate a Mediterranean port, and the fluted minaret went up in the decades after. The Teke emirs held it next, the Ottomans from 1423, and the town then spent five hundred quiet years as a provincial port with a mixed Turkish and Greek population, briefly occupied by Italy after the First World War. Roads, an airport and a deliberate national push turned the coast into resort strip from the 1970s, and Antalya into one of the most-visited cities on earth.
Attalos II of Pergamon founds Attaleia as a harbour for his fleet
The Pergamene kingdom is bequeathed to Rome and the port becomes Roman
Hadrian visits and the city raises his triple marble gate
Sultan Kaykhusraw I takes Antalya, giving the Seljuks a Mediterranean port
The fluted Yivli Minare is raised over the old town under Seljuk rule
Ottoman forces under Murad II take the city for good
Italian troops occupy Antalya after the First World War, withdrawing in 1921
The population exchange removes the city's long-established Greek community
Airport expansion and a state tourism drive turn the coast into resort strips
Know before you go
Payment
Cards & cash mixed
English
Widely spoken
Wifi
Reliable
Power
Type C / F
230 V, 50 Hz
Dialing
+90
Monsoon flooding risk in this window; check current conditions before you go.
Mobile network & SIM card
Get an eSIM before you fly
A Turkey eSIM installs in minutes and works the moment you switch off flight mode. No SIM swap, no roaming bill.
FAQs about Antalya
▸ When is the best time to visit Antalya?
Spring and autumn, roughly March to June and September into October, are the pick: warm and clear, comfortable for beaches and ruins alike, with the sea still warm well into autumn. Midsummer is hot and busy. Winter is mild and green rather than cold, and it is the wettest stretch of the year, which is exactly when the climbers turn up.
▸ How many days do you need in Antalya?
Three days covers the old town, the museum, a beach and the waterfalls. Five lets you add two of the ancient cities, a day up in the mountains and a slow afternoon on the harbour, which is about right for a first visit. On a resort holiday, dip into the city on two or three days.
▸ Should I stay in Antalya itself or out at a resort?
They are different holidays. The city gives you an old town, a museum, trams and ordinary Turkish life with beaches at either end. The strips at Lara, Belek, Kemer and Side give you a pool, sand and a package, plus a taxi ride whenever you want a street that is not a hotel. Splitting a trip between the two works well.
▸ Can you really ski and swim on the same day?
Yes, in a narrow window. The small ski centre at Saklikent, on the Bakirli ridge above the city, holds snow through winter and into spring while the coast is already warm enough for a swim. It is a modest hill rather than a proper ski trip, and it is the novelty of the pairing that people come for.
▸ Do you need a car in Antalya?
Not in the city, where trams, buses and dolmus minibuses cover everything and the old town is walked. For the ruins it helps enormously: Termessos and Koprulu Canyon are awkward without one, and Aspendos and Perge mean a bus plus a wait. Organised day tours are the usual alternative and cover the same ground.
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