How to get from Belek to Alanya

My family and I often fly to Turkey on vacation. Usually after the third or fourth day of a lazy vacation and an all-inclusive meal I have a desire to stretch my legs: go on an excursion, take a cab to town, walk around the neighborhood or take a bike ride. Before my last vacation in September, friends recommended a stay at the TUI Magic Life Masmavi Hotel in Belek.

The place turned out to be gorgeous: a huge green area with the full "stuffing" of a fashionable five-star hotel, animation and a hundred-meter sandy beach. But here came the fourth day. The local beauty and service was beginning to get boring, and I wanted an adventure. Nearby there were equally expensive hotels and endless golf courses. I decided to rent a car and drive it along the coast to Alanya and back.

Аланья – что посмотреть

Now it is one of the popular resorts in Turkey and quite a large city with a population of one hundred thousand people. From May to October due to visitors the number of inhabitants increases several times. In Alanya and the surrounding area about 300 large hotels welcome guests. The landlords offer their guests apartments, holiday apartments and family houses for rent. In the guidebook for Alanya are listed the following places to visit:

Red Tower.
Shipyard.
Ich-Kale Fortress.
Cleopatra Beach.
Damlatash Cave.
Archaeological Museum.
Waterpark.

A little about the history of the city

Alanya's calling card is an ancient ancient fortress on a rocky peninsula, deeply penetrating into the sea. The first buildings on this land date back to the Bronze Age. This part of the city has always been behind the fortress walls. For thousands of years the peninsula was a place of constant bloody wars. The city-fortress belonged to the Hittites, the Persians and the Greeks.

For hundreds of years, the coast was part of the provinces of ancient Rome and the Byzantine Empire. For a long time the fortress served as a haven for pirates. These sea robbers held the entire eastern Mediterranean in fear. In 68 BC, the task of eradicating piracy was assigned to Pompey, the successful Roman general who had defeated the army of Spartacus.

The commander assembled an army of 120,000 legionnaires, huge for its time. Battles at sea and on land lasted nearly three months. The Roman emperor Mark Antony gave the coast together with the fortress to his beloved, the Egyptian queen Cleopatra. History is silent as to whether she visited the fortress on the mountain or the sandy beach named after her.

The original name of the city and the fortress was Korakesion. During the Byzantine era it was already called Kalonoros. In the XIII century the area was conquered by the Seljuk Turks. By order of Sultan Ala ad-Din Kay Kudab, the fortress was enlarged and given a new name, Alaia. After the transition of power to the Ottoman rulers, the city received its modern name - Alanya.

Car rental

The car rental business is quite well developed in Turkey. Both local firms and large international operators - Europcar, Auto Europe, Rentalcars - operate in this country.

We decided not to take any chances with Turkish rental companies - our neighbors told us about the technical condition of old cars with shabby interiors, about petty cheating with gasoline in the tank, and about the lack of insurance. They also gave me advice not to contact firms that require your passport as collateral.

The next tip - before you get the keys, it is advisable to make a video of the entire body of the car, the condition of the interior and the speedometer reading. This will help if you will have unjustified claims because of scratches or dents. We made a contract with Europcar.

A representative of the company was at the reception of our hotel. I was offered a brand new Peugeot 301 with a manual transmission and a diesel engine. I paid $60 for a day's rent. The price included full hull insurance. The child safety seat was free of charge. I had to show my Russian driver's license and passport to rent the car.

When handing over the keys, rental agencies usually require a cash deposit of $100 to $1,000, or a credit card number to block the amount on the account. Europcar limited itself to a two-page contract and the wish of a good trip. Many Russian tourists often ask - is it allowed to drink and drive in Turkey? The local law allows a small amount of alcohol in the driver's blood.

That's about half a can of beer. In this case, it is better not to drink at all. In the event of an accident, even a tiny amount of alcohol can cause serious problems. If you were drunk at the time of the accident, your insurance won't work, and you will have to pay for the damage at your own expense.

About gas stations

After leaving the hotel, I filled the tank with 30 liters, which I regretted the next day when returning the car. It turned out that the diesel Pigo consumes almost 5 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers. During the day we had driven 270 kilometers and consumed only 15 liters. By Russian standards, fuel in Turkey is expensive. A liter of 95 gasoline costs 1.25 euros, and diesel - 1.11 euros.

It's twice as expensive as in Moscow or St. Petersburg. Gas stations are similar to those in Russia. The most famous Turkish fuel companies are TurkPetrol, Opet Serik, and Petrol Ofisi. Of the international brands on the highway I saw several Shell, Total, and BP gas stations. A couple of times we passed Lukoil gas stations.

Route Belek - Alanya

The D400 Antalya - Mersin road runs 5 km north of Belek. The road is four-lane - two in each direction with a separating fence. During the hour and a half we drove through several small towns: Serik, Side, Manavgat. After the bridge over the Karpuzçay River the highway comes to the Mediterranean coast. The open sandy beaches alternate with small hotels, stores and cafes. Twice we stopped - for a short photo shoot, and for a swim. As soon as the road began to cut through the hillsides, the outline of the city and the ruins of an ancient fortress on top of the mountain appeared on the horizon.

Beginning of the tour

It took me half an hour to find free parking in the center of Alanya. We had to drive a few blocks until we spotted a vacant spot near the port. It turned out that this is where the old town starts, the ruins of which were clearly visible behind the ancient fortress walls. The parking lots in the center are for a fee. I paid 12 Turkish liras for four and a half hours.

At the port we were met by a medieval verve and the octagonal Red Tower (Kyzyl Küle), a powerful defensive fort on the shore of the bay. The same tower is depicted on the city's flag. On the steep slopes of the peninsula, ancient ruins and houses of local residents stand quaintly side by side. On the territory of what was once a huge settlement remains a few ordinary Turkish villages, whose residents work in the tourism sector.

Protective wall of the ancient city

In the old part of Alanya is still preserved fortress wall. The ancient builders used large stones as the material. This allowed the defenders to withstand the attacks of stonethrowers and cannonballs.

The fortress of Alanya is conveniently defended from both sea and land, bounded by a 500-meter isthmus. The defenses consist of 140 towers, loopholes, passages for the guards and special openings for dropping stones and pouring hot oil on the heads of enemies. The outer walls encircle the entire peninsula along the perimeter, their length exceeding 6 kilometers.

In the eastern part of the old city, the crenellated wall rises straight out of the water, and after 400 meters turns to the west and soars steeply up the rocky slope. From the Red Tower towards the fortress of Ich-Kale at different times were built two parallel walls of different heights.

The garrison of Alanya could hold its ground for months. Numerous granaries and cellars were built inside the fortress. Fresh water was stored in 400 reservoirs inside the towers and walls. On the peninsula there were also many administrative and public buildings: arsenal, sultan's palace, hamam, military school, mosque, market. There were also barracks, houses of nobles and commoners.

The road to the top

You can get to the inner fortress of Ich-Kale on foot, by bus or by car. I did not risk driving up the serpentines in a rented car - extreme driving skills in the mountains were required. We also did not dare to walk up the narrow road climbing steeply, and in the open terrain in the thirty-degree heat with a child we would not last long.

We ended up hiring a local cab driver. The road was constantly winding, in some places serpentine turning the car 180 degrees. Sometimes groups of people suddenly appeared in front of the hood after the turns. The driver often had to slow down, back up, and avoid unexpected obstacles.

Ten minutes later we were at the top. There is a fee to enter the citadel - a ticket costs 15 Turkish liras. Other currencies are not accepted here. From April to October the fortress is open for visitors every day from 8:00 to 19:00. On the territory of Ich-Kale almost no intact buildings are left - only the walls of barracks on the first floor and the Greek basilica. I got the impression that many buildings had been destroyed long before the Seljuk conquest. The foundations of the buildings and the piles of scattered stones remind us of this.

Viewpoint in Ich-Kale

On the northwestern part of the wall, a special viewing platform was built for tourists, adjacent to the citadel battlements. This is the highest point of the peninsula - more than 250 meters above sea level. The views of the city, Cleopatra's beach, and the endless blue sea are breathtaking. I took a hundred of my best landscape photos here.

The lush pine trees growing on the rocks added contrast and lushness to the photographs. If you look at the city between the loopholes for a long time, you get the feeling of flying. From the observation deck I climbed the narrow inner ledges of the walls, where the guards had once walked. If you move carelessly or have uncomfortable shoes, you could easily fall off the wall. I couldn't figure out how they did without a railing.

The Legend of the Old Fortress

There is a legend describing the entertainment of the local nobility with those condemned to death. In Ich-Kala there is a place on the wall where such games were held - Adam Atadjak. At first the condemned were kept without food and water for several days. Then the poor souls were driven to the ledge, given three stones and promised a pardon if they reached the water with at least one of these stones. From a height of 250 meters it seems that the sea is right below you. But this is just an illusion - none of the convicts could do it.

The Return of

We decided to finish our tour of the peninsula with a hike. We returned slowly, often stopping to take pictures of each other against the background of the local beauty. In a small village we entered a shop where a lot of handmade souvenirs were sold, and met the owner. It turned out that her whole family is busy making different handicrafts for tourists - bags, hats and lamps.

It took us almost forty minutes to get out of the city - the streets in Alanya are narrow, and the traffic lights and thousands of tourists were constantly blocking the traffic. We returned along the highway at night in heavy traffic, and the average speed did not exceed 70 kilometers per hour. At night on Turkish roads without a navigator you can quickly get lost, accidentally missing the right turn. For smartphones I advise to download the free application maps.me. Once installed, it does not need the Internet. To summarize our short trip, I made two important conclusions:

An independent travel by car is more interesting and profitable than, for example, a bus tour in a group.
When planning a small trip, you need to study the route in advance and carefully read the information about the places you are going to visit.

And finally, here is a quote from Anatole France, a 19th-century French writer: "Sometimes one day spent elsewhere gives more than ten years of life at home".