Travel attractions and vacation guides in Side from sideexcursion.com: These days, Side is more famous for its sun and sand than its ancient history. During the summer months of endless blue skies, European travelers flock to the town to flop out on the sand of the many beaches lining the surrounding coast. The closest, and most popular, strip of sand, though, is right in town. East Beach is a buzzing place packed with sun loungers, restaurants, and cafés, and offers everything you need for a full day of sunning, relaxing, and topping up the tan. If you’re looking for a little more action, you’ll also find water sports galore on offer here. For a picnic spot away from the beach, you can’t beat the Manavgat Waterfalls, about 13 kilometers northeast of Side. The waterfalls sit upon the Manavgat River, which rises in the Seytan Mountain Range of the Taurus Mountains. Set amid a landscaped garden, the area is hugely popular with both local families and tourists on sunny weekends. Try to pick a weekday for a visit if you’d prefer the site to be less crowded. You can walk right up to the falls using a network of gangways to get close-up views. The thunderous roar of the water is a dramatic soundtrack to a visit here. Combine a visit to the waterfalls with some history with the 5 in 1 Best of Antalya Region Tour, which packs in the major highlights of the area in a full-day tour. This tour from Antalya visits the waterfalls first before guided tours of both the Perge and Aspendos ruins. The tour then travels on to Side for guided tours of the theater ruins area and the Temples of Apollo and Athena. Lunch, all entry fees, and transport are included.
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 a well known licensed travel agency in Alanya & Side. We organize travel tours 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. Discover additional info at Side excursions Turkey.
The Damlataş Cave is a 15,000 year old natural formation and is one of the mysterious beauties in Alanya located in the very center of the town just below the Alanya Castle. The cave is fascinatingly beautiful with its very impressive illuminated stalactites and stalagmites. It has a constant temperature around 22-23 degrees. The section, which has wide columns with stalactites and stalagmites, is 13/14 meters wide and 15 meters high. Both Damlataş and Cleopatra Beaches are blue flag beaches, located side by side on the west side of the historical peninsula. Damlataş Beach is on the shore in front of Damlataş Cave. As the name suggests, Cleopatra Beach is famous because of the legend that Egyptian Queen, Cleopatra and Roman Emperor, Antonius are said to have swam here.
In ancient times, the surrounding region known as Pamphylia had a cluster of cities, many of which are compelling archaeological sites today. So while you’re on the Turkish Riviera a visit to an archaeological museum will always be worthwhile. Alanya’s is famed for a bronze statue of Hercules, dating from the 2nd century CE and just over half a metre tall. Also on show are intact amphorae from the 2nd century BCE, coins going back as far as 700 BCE, an inscribed Phoenician tablet from 625 BCE and a 46-line letter by the Roman emperor Septimus Severus. The museum also has an ethnographic section detailing local ways of life down the years, as well as an outdoor space showing ancient agriculture techniques, and funeral customs from ancient times through the Islamic era.
Alanya’s emblem is a 13th-century Seljuk defensive tower, getting its name from the red brick that makes up the structure’s upper storey and parapet. The Red Tower has an octagonal footprint and climbs to 33 metres with marble blocks on its lower walls. This rare piece of Medieval defensive architecture was constructed to protect Alanya’s harbour and shipyard, and greeted people’s arrival to the city for many centuries. There’s a cistern inside, still able to collect rainwater, and you can make out the historic siege-repelling murder holes, through which boiling water and pitch would be dropped on helpless invaders. On the first floor is a small ethnographic museum with tools and handicrafts reflecting the Turkmen culture in the Taurus Mountains.
For the travelers who overnight and have time to explore other sites around Ephesus, we recommend to visit the following sites. They are all nearby Ephesus. Some can be added to private Ephesus tour, some can be visited in a day trip from Kusadasi, Selcuk, Sirince or Izmir. All the below sites, are recommended for travelers who have been to Ephesus already. Ephesus is the main highlight of the area. Some of the sites can be combined with Private Ephesus Tours. For tour enquiries and/or questions please do not hesitate to contact us. For the travelers who will be staying in Kusadasi, Sirince or Selcuk, we offer 3 days tour of western Turkey tours.
Alanya was once a famous pirate harbor in antiquity. Pompeius, the enemy of Julius Ceasar, in the Roman Civil war defeated the pirates. Nowadays, pirate themed boats in Alanya’s harbor are a reminder of these times long gone. There is non-stop entertainment on the cruises with music and animations, as well as many swimming breaks in the blue waters of the Turkish Riviera. Alara Han is on the Antalya-Alanya route, in Çakallar village in the town of Okurcalar . Alara Han is a historical caravanserai built in the 13th century by the Seljuks. It’s an exceptional masterpiece awaiting visitors seeking discoveries about the cultural heritage of Alanya. The nearby Alara Castle was once a majestic fortress along the southern silk road in Turkey.
The person known as Prytan was the Mayor of Ephesus. Since there are emperor and goddess statues around the Prytaneion, this palace is accepted as a sacred place. Prytaneion is the sacred place where the sacred fire of Hestia is lit, which represents the independence and sovereignty of the city in every Greek city-state. The word comes from the word prytaneis or pyrtan (the executive board of the democratic Greek city), where sacred rituals and dinner parties attended by the city’s rulers were held, and above all important decisions were made for the city government. The sacred fire of Hestia symbolizes the immortality of the city, the extinction of this fire was regarded as bad luck, Prytan’s most important task was to make sure that this sacred fire won’t blow out. With this location, it was the most important of the official buildings and the heart of the city. Besides, the official guesthouse was also within the parts of this building. Discover extra info on https://www.sideexcursion.com/.
Alanya is also within day-tripping distance of some of this Mediterranean region’s most well-known ancient sites and tourist attractions, so if you want to brush off the sand for the day and head out to explore, there is plenty to keep you occupied off the beach. As well as the places mentioned on this list, you can easily also make day trips to Antalya to visit its museum and stroll its old town district, Aspendos (Turkey’s most famous Roman Theater), and other major archaeological sites near Antalya such as Perge.
Waterfall and swimming hole in Sapadere Canyon: Sapadere Canyon, on the outskirts of the small village of Sapadere, is an easy trip from Alanya, sitting just 20 kilometers inland from the city. From May to October, plenty of tour operators in Alanya run daily jeep tours to Sapadere Canyon, which are good for travelers who want to sit back and enjoy the scenery. Although small, only stretching for 800 meters in length, Sapadere Canyon is squeezed between high walls that reach up to 400 meters high. This gives the canyon a cooler climate than along the coast and makes it an extremely popular destination in the height of summer. A walkway leads through the canyon, passing a few shady cafés, where you can relax and enjoy the canyon environment. At the bottom of the canyon is a small lagoon and waterfall. Most people come to swim here in the cold, blue-green water of the lagoon and enjoy the cooler temperatures.