Alanya

Last update September 24, 2026

Alanya sits on a rocky peninsula on Turkey’s southern coast, about two hours by road from Antalya airport, and it’s built its whole identity around the thing sticking straight up out of the middle of it: a Seljuk castle from the 13th century, put up under Sultan Alaeddin Keykubat, with walls that still wrap most of the promontory. You can walk up, which is steep and takes a while, or take the cable car that opened a few years back and gets you there in minutes with the same view unfolding the whole ride. Either way, go early morning or right before sunset. Midday sun on that climb, with nothing but stone and no shade, is not something you want to test yourself against in July.

Below the castle, the harbor holds most of the other old stuff worth seeing. The Red Tower, an octagonal brick structure built to guard the port, is famous enough locally that it used to appear on Turkish banknotes and still sits on the city’s flag. A short walk from there are the remains of the old Seljuk shipyard, five arched docks built in 1228 and connected by a run of interior passages, which is apparently the only surviving structure of its kind anywhere. It doesn’t look like much from a photo, but standing inside one of those stone arches and thinking about how old it is tends to land differently than the castle does.

Cleopatra Beach is the other reason most people end up in Alanya, and it earns the hype, golden sand, clear water, and a stretch long enough that it never feels as crowded as the town around it. The legend says Mark Antony had this particular sand shipped in as a gift for Cleopatra, which is the kind of story that’s more fun to repeat than to fact-check. At the western end of the beach, Damlataş Cave is worth ducking into if the heat gets to be too much. It was discovered in 1948, the stalactites are genuinely impressive for how small the space is, and the humid air inside is supposedly good for your lungs, whether or not you believe that part.

If you’ve got more than a couple of days, book a boat trip out of the harbor. Most circle the peninsula and stop at a handful of sea caves along the coast, Pirate Cave, Lovers Cave, Phosphorus Cave, with a swim break thrown in somewhere in the middle. And if you’d rather get out of town entirely, Dim Cave and the rafting runs through Köprülü Canyon are both close enough for a full day trip, which is a decent way to remind yourself Alanya has more going on than just its beaches, even if the beaches are the reason you booked the trip in the first place.